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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

The gay issue

There has been quite a debate over the wholly gay casting of Russell Davies’ latest offering It’s A Sin. On the Radio 4 show Start The Week presented by Andrew Marr on Mondays Russell Davies defended the casting on the grounds that there was unfair prejudice to gay parts. There should be, [...]

January 20, 2021 // 0 Comments

Woke frustration

One aspect of contemporary arts which consistently irritates me is the random woke application. A good example of this was a programme I saw recently on Channel Four entitled The 100 Greatest Musicals. I enjoy such programmes for the clips from the musicals and input from film historians and [...]

January 12, 2021 // 0 Comments

Fiddler on the Roof

Last night on Sky Arts there was a fascinating programme about the continuing appeal of Fiddler on the Roof since its first Broadway production of Jerome Robbins in 1964. Every day since then there has been a production of the musical somewhere in the world. I was fortunate to see the first London [...]

December 31, 2020 // 0 Comments

La Traviata

This Sir Richard Eyre production was streamed last night by Covent Garden. It was – thank goodness – a traditional representation of Verdi’s masterpiece based on Alexandre Dumas’s The Lady of the Camelias.   It benefits from a strong story line of Violetta (Hrachuki Bajseoz) a [...]

May 9, 2020 // 0 Comments

Leopoldstadt

Whilst a new play by 82 year old Tom Stoppard is a significant theatrical event, your correspondent cannot be numbered amongst his greatest fans. For me he is more of a wordsmith than a playwright and too clever by half. He has a talent for comic writing but I have always felt unfulfilled by his [...]

March 13, 2020 // 0 Comments

Cinderella/ New Wimbledon Theatre

I have a hate-love-love relationship with panto. I rarely look forward to it but always enjoy it. The exuberance, the children in the audience’s evident enthusiasm, the costumes, the traditions and joie de vivre all subsume except if I was going  to the anti-austerity panto foisted on [...]

December 9, 2019 // 0 Comments

Oklahoma! – Chichester Festival Theatre

Readers might recall that when I purchased my matinee ticket for Oklahoma the box office informed me it was a “relaxed” performance. This was defined in the programme as one for those in the autistic spectrum. The box office lady said I should expect some attending to shout out and move about [...]

August 30, 2019 // 0 Comments

The Lehman Trilogy

Many of my friends who go irregularly to the West End Theatre cite the same reasons: 1) it is expensive; 2) the theatres are old with poor amenities; 3) it’s a rush and the choice of supper beforehand or after is unattractive; 4) you emerge late at night in an insalubrious part of London; 5) [...]

August 15, 2019 // 0 Comments

Art/Chichester Festival Theatre

I first saw Art some 25 years at the Wyndham Theatre with a strong cast of Albert Finney, Tom Courtenay and Ken Stott. I remembered it as a comedy about the acquisition of a piece of expensive art being a totally white canvas for £200,000 and the effect of this on a group of old friends who [...]

February 1, 2019 // 0 Comments

La Traviata/Glyndebourne

Glyndebourne on tour is a less expensive version of the summer festival where the opera is put on the conveyor belt for the eventual production in the festival. There is quite a bit of fine tuning to be done to this La Traviata. The story based on Alexandre Dumas’ Lady of the Camelias is powerful [...]

October 16, 2018 // 0 Comments

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