Shakespeare surrounded
What with the BBC2 four-part series The Hollow Crown, Mark Rylance as Richard III at the Globe and Simon Russell Beale as Timon of Athens at the National, Shakespeare: staging the world at the British...
View ArticleChapter Road gets on the map
When 15-year-old Christopher runs away from his father’s home in Swindon and makes his epic journey to London – which he’s never been to before – and he reaches Paddington Station and needs to get to...
View ArticleThe ticket-buying jungle – what not to do
I expected a labyrinth but I found a jungle. The students from SUNY New Paltz are in London again for their annual theatre visit and I was listening to their experiences trying to book tickets for...
View ArticleHumming the set
is what some reviewers said they found themselves doing after the first night of Lionel Bart’s Blitz, way back in the sixties. Meaning they found the set (Sean Kenny) more memorable than the songs, or...
View ArticleFreezing in Bermondsey
Round the back of Bermondsey tube station, among housing estates, is a large building that apparently used to be a biscuit factory. Follow the (not terribly visible) signs into the parking lot and a...
View ArticleThe Captain of Kopenick
Another farce at the Olivier Theatre, though this one seems a lot more at home on the open stage than The Magistrate. (National Theatre poster) The Captain of Kopenick, by the German playwright Carl...
View ArticleTicket-buying international
A few months ago, in response to some baffled queries from overseas students, I investigated the ticket-buying jungle in London and turned up some rather interesting results. As a group tour booker I...
View ArticleTravelex: good news or … ?
If you’ve ever tried to buy foreign currency in an airport chances are you are dealing with Travelex. Today, in the expectation of leaving Sydney for LA, I bought $US150 dollars with my Australian...
View ArticleTable in The Shed
The Shed The critics love it, and it’s certainly an eye-catching, not to say in-yer-face addition to the South Bank. This is the National Theatre’s temporary replacement for the Cottesloe/Dorfman,...
View ArticleChildren of the Sun
Protasov’s gate is stuck half open, which is unfortunate bearing in mind what happens at the end of the play. It seems his front door must be stuck open too seeing the amount of visitors he gets. Apart...
View ArticleBackstage tours & other things
Not only is London the theatre capital of the world (discuss) but it offers, in addition to the rather more obvious and glittery shows in the West End and elsewhere, a plethora of other theatre-related...
View ArticleThe One Day of the Year
The One Day of the Year (finboroughtheatre.co.uk) There’s only one thing wrong with the Finborough Theatre’s current production of Alan Seymour’s The One Day of the Year: the theatre it’s in is too...
View ArticleTales of madness and sadness
Kingston summer school takes place over the month of July. My theatre group comprised twelve lively lads and lasses (mostly lasses), as always up for a thoroughly good time in this golden city of ours....
View ArticleOur Country’s Good
In 1789, barely a year after the First Fleet of convicts and marines arrived in New South Wales, the governor, Arthur Phillip – who was a remarkable and unusual man – made the remarkable and unusual...
View ArticleBuying theatre tickets (3)
It’s the third time I’ve blogged on this topic. Things change so fast on the internet these days so I thought it time for yet another update. Most people booking theatre tickets, including me, begin...
View ArticleSo what is theatre exactly?
Theatre should be real, says Alexander Zeldin. All theatre is artifice, says Paul Hunter. I paraphrase both, but this is the essence of the thinking of two talented theatre practitioners I’ve come into...
View ArticleThe sound of the naked voice
Call me old-fashioned, but I do like to hear a naked voice when I go to the theatre. We lost them some years ago in musicals. And I guess if you don’t mind watching performers with appendages attached...
View ArticleCoronavirus – The show does go on
Theatres and cinemas throughout the UK, and in many other countries, are closed due to the Coronavirus pandemic. This puts a lot of people out of work, with no knowing where their next penny is coming...
View ArticleTheatre in Lockdown
We are now in week eight of lockdown here in the UK, and I can safely say I have watched more theatre than ever before. There is so much on offer, from the National Theatre, the RSC, the Globe, Andrew...
View ArticleTheatre in lockdown part three: THE OLD VIC
My latest theatre experience involved a one-to-one with actor Andrew Scott. We were suitably distanced – he in an empty Old Vic Theatre in south London and me in my flat in north London. At 7.30pm on...
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