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Articles by Tim Holford-Smith

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About Tim Holford-Smith

Despite running his architectural practice full-time, Tim is a frequent theatre-goer and occasional am-dram producer. More Posts

Alan Bennett looking back aged 90

He would not like the phrase – and nor do I – but Alan Bennett is a ‘national treasure’.  Last night, aged 90 and in a wheelchair, he looked back on his life and body of work.  It brought back many memories. Forty Years On with John Gielgud would be up there with Shadowlands as [...]

December 14, 2024 // 0 Comments

Oliver!/Chichester Festival Theatre

Oliver! is an unusual basis for a musical as the story of Oliver Twist is heart-rendingly sad and grim till the ending. So much so that one friend of mine, though a lover of musicals, cannot bear to see it. The early scene in the workhouse and funeral parlour are so depressingly sad and young [...]

August 29, 2024 // 0 Comments

The Motive and the Cue

This play by Jack Thorne – directed by Sam Mendes -is the hottest ticket in town. Its subject is the direction of Sir John Gielgud (Mark Gatiss) of Richard Burton (Johnny Flynn) in a 1966 Broadway production of Hamlet. I went to the matinee yesterday with my customary companion after we [...]

February 16, 2024 // 0 Comments

Dear England/James Graham

James Graham’s latest play has had an extended run from the National Theatre and we saw it yesterday at Cameron Mackintosh’s Prince Edward Theatre. I can see why as, whilst my theatre companion was a football fan and follower like myself, the play went beyond its central theme of how Gareth [...]

December 10, 2023 // 0 Comments

A cultural break in London

I have spent the last couple of days in cultural activities in London. On Tuesday I visited the opening of the Royal Institute of Oil Painters in the Mall Gallery. Much of the work is mediocre but it’s a useful platform for aspiring young oil artists. In the evening I saw a performance [...]

November 30, 2023 // 0 Comments

Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf?

Having watched a bio-documentary of Elizabeth Taylor in which the critic Derek Malcolm argued that the above film, based on the Edward Albee play, proved she could act, I duly ordered the DVD. It stars Elizabeth Taylor as Martha, the daughter of the President of the Faculty, and her husband George [...]

November 7, 2023 // 0 Comments

Shakespeare on film

As part of its celebration of the Immortal Bard the BBC has been showing some of the more celebrated film Shakespearean film adaptations, notably 1950s Richard III and Julius Caesar. Richard III was produced and directed by Laurence Olivier who made the title rôle definitive although the accuracy [...]

October 23, 2023 // 0 Comments

Revival of Bill Naughton’s Spring and Port Wine

For personal reasons which I will divulge later I was so delighted to hear that Bill Naughton’s Spring and Port Wine is to be revived at the Octagon Theatre Bolton. Bill Naughton was of poor Irish stock in County Mayo and moved to Bolton where he bagged and delivered coal. His breakthrough as a [...]

February 11, 2023 // 0 Comments

Noises Off/Theatre Royal Brighton

The amazing thing about Michael Frayn’s pastiche of the British bedroom farce – Noises Off – is that it was first staged 40 years ago. Even though the genre of such Whitehall farces hardly exists (remember the long running No Sex Please We’re British) this one is still regularly [...]

October 20, 2022 // 0 Comments

Cabaret at the Kitkat Club/Playhouse Theatre

My connection with this musical goes back a long way. The two Berlin novels by Christopher Isherwood on which they were based (Mr Norris Changes Trains and Goodbye to Berlin) made a huge impression on me as a kid through their  graphic depiction of the final days of the Weimar Republic and the [...]

October 15, 2022 // 0 Comments

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