We continue our series building up to the opening of Jermyn Street’s complete staging of Noel Coward’s Tonight at 8.30 with these new, rehearsal room videos from the cast introducing the nine plays in the cycle, not seen all together in London since their 1936 premiere. Watch onscreen below – and then get booking to watch onstage!
Noel Coward wrote Tonight at 8.30 as a vehicle for himself and Gertrude Lawrence, with whom he’d previously starred onstage in Privates Lives. The cycle of one-act plays and musicals had its West End premiere at the Phoenix Theatre in 1936 and has not been seen in full onstage in London since.
The nine short pieces range from music-hall pastiche to light comedies to heartbreaking drama. For this major revival at Jermyn Street Theatre, under the helm of artistic director Tom Littler, the one-acters have been arranged into three trios entitled Secret Hearts, Nuclear Families, and Bedroom Farces. Audiences have the chance to see the three trios (all nine plays) in a single day on Saturdays and Sundays during the run.
Nine actors play 73 roles across the nine plays. The ensemble cast comprises Sara Crowe, Ian Hallard, Nick Waring, Miranda Foster, Rosemary Ashe, Jeremy Rose, Boadicea Ricketts, Ben Wiggins and Stefan Benardzcyk, who also provides musical direction.
Videos
What happens when a charity committee of actors convenes? “Nobody really listens.” Boadicea Ricketts discusses Star Chamber.
Ways and Means is “a mixture of a light soufflé of a comedy and a bit of thriller”, according to Nick Waring.
In The Red Peppers, “the audience are given a glimpse into what goes on backstage,” says Rosemary Ashe. And we get a sneak peek of rehearsal room antics for this one too. “It’s huge fun.”
In our earlier video feature, Miranda Foster talked about playing Laura in Still Life, which was later adapted as Brief Encounter. The Astonished Heart, says co-star Sara Crowe, is like “the dark side of Brief Encounter. It’s about what happens when a couple take their affair to its conclusion. It’s very dark and very clever.”
Cast member, musical director and Noel Coward aficionado Stefan Bednarczyk enthuses about Shadow Play, not least because it contains “three of Coward’s most beautiful songs from the period: Play, Orchestra, Play, You Were There and Then.”
