One of Alan Ayckbourn’s biggest ever successes, 1975’s Bedroom Farce, has only just made the transition in an entertaining production from Martin Jarvis and Rosalind Ayres which premiered in two parts across New Year’s Eve/Day. It is now available via BBC Sounds.
‘Throughout the play, I felt personally caught up in this family battlefield’: THE FEVER SYNDROME – Hampstead Theatre ★★★★
The first thing you notice upon entering the auditorium is the impressive dominating cross-section of the Myers’ family’s four-storey, ageing townhouse based in Manhattan.
‘Theatrical comfort food’: BLITHE SPIRIT – West End ★★★
Written and premiered in the early 1940s while WW2 raged on and the prospect of losing a precious loved one at short notice felt like a very real possibility, Noël Coward’s ghostly comedy is, perhaps not surprisingly, the first of ‘The Master’s plays to be seen in the West End post-pandemic.
‘This time the thrill was different & unexpected’: BLITHE SPIRIT – Harold Pinter Theatre ★★★★
In Richard Eyre’s briskly directed production Jennifer Saunders stands out. Her Arcati is draggled but not cartoonish: donnishly dishevelled, earnestly scholarly rather than exaggeratedly nuts.
NEWS: Blithe Spirit starring Jennifer Saunders returns to the West End in September 2021
Theatre Royal Bath Productions, Lee Dean and Jonathan Church Theatre Productions have announced the West End return of Noël Coward’s classic comedy Blithe Spirit, directed by Richard Eyre and starring Jennifer Saunders.
‘Jennifer Saunders’ performance will not disappoint’: BLITHE SPIRIT – Touring & West End
The psychology of Blithe Spirit snaps convincingly into place in Richard Eyre’s production while at the same time it fully utilises every opportunity to make the audience laugh.
NEWS: Sherlock creators Steven Moffat & Mark Gatiss collaborate in Chichester Festival Season packed with world premieres
World premieres in Chichester Festival Theatre’s Festival 2020 include first plays by Steven Moffat and Kate Mosse and new work by Suhayla El-Bushra and Christopher Shinn.
‘Saunders triumphs in a role she was surely meant to play’: BLITHE SPIRIT – Touring & West End ★★★★
The pace of the cast members’ dialogue and interaction with each other is almost always spot on in Blithe Spirit.
NEWS: UK tour & West End run announced for Blithe Spirit starring Jennifer Saunders
Noël Coward’s classic comedy Blithe Spirit, directed by Richard Eyre and starring Jennifer Saunders, will return next year for a UK tour followed by a strictly limited six-week engagement at the West End’s Duke of York’s Theatre following a celebrated reception at the Theatre Royal Bath earlier this summer.
‘A guaranteed crowd pleaser’: BLITHE SPIRIT – Bath ★★★★
It’s is not going to change your life but for a chance to see a national treasure and to wallow away from the pressures of the real world for a couple of hours, Blithe Spirit ticks all the boxes.
‘Saunders is outrageously good but then so are the rest of the cast’: BLITHE SPIRIT – Bath ★★★★
If I could look into Madame Arcati’s crystal ball I think I would see a West End transfer on the cards for Richard Eyre’s playful production of Blithe Spirit.
NEWS: Katherine Parkinson & Vanessa Redgrave join line-up for Theatre Royal Bath’s summer season as new productions are announced
Jonathan Church, artistic director of Theatre Royal Bath’s summer season, has announced further productions and new casting for the 2019 programme. Katherine Parkinson joins Rupert Everett in the cast of Uncle Vanya which he also directs.
Who won what in the 2017 Manchester Theatre Awards?
The Manchester Theatre Awards represent the cream of theatre in my native North-West.
Love’s Labours Lost / Much Ado About Nothing – Chichester & West End
A couple of years ago the Royal Shakespeare Company paired Love’s Labours Lost with Much Ado About Nothing (renamed Love’s Labours Won) in a gorgeous setting amidst the Great War to much acclaim. This year they’ve revived the productions, with many of the original cast and have brought it to Chichester Festival Theatre ahead of the West End.
NEWS: Edward Bennett & Lisa Dillon lead RSC double bill at Haymarket
The Royal Shakespeare Company’s hugely acclaimed 2014 pairing of Love’s Labour’s Lost and Much Ado About Nothing (or Love’s Labour’s Won) arrives in London this Christmas, following runs at Chichester Festival Theatre and Manchester Opera House. From 9 December 2016 to 18 March 2017, Edward Bennett and Lisa Dillon will delight audiences at the Theatre Royal Haymarket in Christopher Luscombe’s elegant, effervescent productions.
KING JOHN – Rose Theatre, Kingston
The rarely performed or heard of play by William Shakespeare sees the return of Trevor Nunn at the Rose Theatre, who valiantly tries to deliver a solid production of a problematic play.
HAPGOOD – Hampstead Theatre
Because of the instability of the present there’s always a faint whiff of nostalgia for the old certainties of the past. And the Cold War era has its very own allure. This can be seen in two current successes: that of the revival of Tom Stoppard’s 1988 play, Hapgood, and of a new play by American playwright Mia Chung, You for Me for You, which takes a look behind the bamboo curtain at North Korea. When it was first staged, Stoppard’s play was widely seen as incomprehensible, with a labyrinthine plot which puzzled not only the characters of the story itself, but audiences as well. And Cold War certainties are surely not so comforting if they are, well, uncertain.
TICKETS: Mark’s Top Ten recommendations + this week’s openings (7 Dec)
What’s opening in London and beyond this week, plus my personal Top Ten of the Week including Bend it Like Beckham and The Winter’s Tale
TICKETS: Mark’s Top Ten recommendations + this week’s openings (7 Dec)
What’s opening in London and beyond this week, plus my personal Top Ten of the Week including Bend it Like Beckham and The Winter’s Tale