I’ve had a heavy schedule of plays over the past few weeks, including quite a few comedies, many of them with deep, dark cores. (For dramas I’ve seen recently, see my companion Theatre Diary piece.) As usual, I’ve listed productions in closing date order. Note, the first – not the least bit dark – finishes […]
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My theatre diary: Comedies The Ruling Class, Di and Viv and Rose, Diary of a Nobody and Bad Jews
I’ve had a heavy schedule of plays over the past few weeks, including quite a few comedies, many of them with deep, dark cores. (For dramas I’ve seen recently, see my companion Theatre Diary piece.) As usual, I’ve listed productions in closing date order. Note, the first – not the least bit dark – finishes […]
THE LAST OF THE DEMULLINS Jermyn St, SW1
AN OLD FIGHT HONOURED Sick of the patriarchy, girls? Take a safari to 1908 and visit the real thing. Witness the elephantine authority of Hugo deMullin, last of a line of beautifully pointless country squires, telling his 36-year-old daughter that … Continue reading →
Review: Billy Elliott (Victoria Palace)
Howway, our Billy, it’s been a long time … in fact it’s so long since I first saw Billy Elliott, George Maguire one of the original Billys has grown up and I’ve been able to review his adult work. So it was a treat to go back and see how it is, ten years on. It is […]
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CANOEING FOR BEGINNERS Royal Court Liverpool
NOT EXACTLY SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST… 12 years ago John Darwin paddled out into the North Sea, faking his death for the insurance. He and his wife – who hid him for a while in a secret room – were … Continue reading →
Review: Bull (Young Vic)
The first thing I thought seeing Sam Troughton come on stage, was ‘that’s not a very good suit, why can’t theatre companies ever do good suits?’ and if you’ve seen Bull you’ll know that makes me complicit in the bullying and demeaning of Troughton’s character which is the pivot and thrust of the whole exciting […]
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What went wrong with The Addams Family (and what’s right at ArtsEd)
I saw a splendid production of The Addams Family at ArtsEd last Saturday (which runs to this Saturday only (Feb 7).
ARCADIA Theatre Royal, Brighton and touring
STOPPARD’S MASTERWORK ON THE ROAD AGAIN It’s a play of dazzling ideas, scientific and philosophical: Tom Stoppard at his most provocative. In 1993 the NT production won an Olivier; for some it is the greatest modern play. It artfully expands … Continue reading →
Review: Anything Goes (Wimbledon Theatre)
Oh, Daniel Evans, you little balding bundle of Welsh genius – I’m not saying you were wasted in that snooker venue in Sheffield but you certainly deserve the widest of musical stages for your work: Anything Goes is a musical theatre buff’s musical, crammed to the gunwales with talent and invention. The plot’s irrelevant, and […]
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DIARY OF A NOBODY King’s Head N1
THE POOTERS RIDE AGAIN, PUB STYLE I had some misgivings, since I know the 1892 book by George and Weedon Grossmithalmost by heart: born in an age whose Punch-ish humour does not always chime with us (oh, those heavy servant-girl … Continue reading →
Conversation with Caitlin Moran: Why cats are unlovable
It’s week six of my blog challenge to respond to my favourite columnist Caitlin Moran each week. These blogs, unlike 99% of what I write and tweet, are meant to be non-theatrical, but with a topic like cats, you’ll forgive me – and Andrew Lloyd Webber – a few minuscule digressions. You can read more […]
ANYTHING GOES New Wimbledon theatre SW19 and touring
A SHIPLOAD OF DELIGHT What can I say? Daniel Evans’ production is delicious, it’s de-lovely, a de-lirious succession of treats. There is always a fizzing joyful absurdity about Cole Porter’s 1934 shipboard musical – its book largely by P.G. Wodehouse, … Continue reading →
Coming out late in the day: better late than never
Earlier this week, Oscar and Tony winner Joel Grey, now 82, came out officially as gay. And in today’s Observer, Richard Wilson, aged 78, tells The Observer about his own public coming out two years ago: “I was officially “outed” by Time Out a couple of years ago.
Review: Whistle Down The Wind (Union Theatre)
Whistle Down The Wind had a huge effect on me. It was the first ‘film with people in it’ (as opposed to cartoons) that my parents took me to see. Of course, aged 7, even in black-and-white I fell in love with Hayley Mills – a brilliant casting by her godfather Bryan Forbes for whom the eerie allegorical drama […]
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Review: Whistle Down The Wind (Union Theatre)
Whistle Down The Wind had a huge effect on me. It was the first ‘film with people in it’ (as opposed to cartoons) that my parents took me to see. Of course, aged 7, even in black-and-white I fell in love with Hayley Mills – a brilliant casting by her godfather Bryan Forbes for whom the eerie allegorical drama […]
The post Review: Whistle Down The Wind (Union Theatre) appeared first on JohnnyFox.
Farewell to Geraldine McEwan
Into the 90s, she was stunning in Ionesco’s The Chairs at the Royal Court, opposite the late Richard Briers, and from where they transferred to reprise it on Broadway. That was a project she’d initiated herself, telling Playbill’s Harry Haun when it transferred to New York in 1998: “I was reading plays, as one does, and I thought, ‘Oh, I’ll have a look at Ionesco, but I should think it’s old hat.
Review: Di and Viv and Rose
The three stars beautifully convey their characters’ quirks, individuality and hurts with an open-hearted generosity and rapport that makes it entirely captivating.
Review: The Ruling Class
There’s no doubting the boldness of this bonkers play about a special kind of madness, and its alternately outrageous and courageous view of a titled – and heavily entitled – family’s feud, and the extremes that they are driven to.
Review: The Hard Problem
Stoppard, now 77, is still spinning the plates of philosophical enquiry and discourse in the world premiere of his latest play, but it presents hard dramatic, as well as intellectual, problems that director Nicholas Hytner’s sparse and elegantly inhabited production can’t fully solve.
Review: Taken at Midnight
Jonathan Church’s production, which originated at Chichester’s Minerva Theatre late last year, is a handsome, thoughtful addition to the West End roster. It may sometimes be gruelling to watch, but it is never less than absorbing.