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Theatre

The Blue Angel (1930)

The Blue Angel ignited the film career of Marlene Dietrich, then aged 28, and her film career going nowhere. Just another struggling Berlin actress. Fortunately for her director Josef von Sternberg cast her in The Blue Angel a cooperation that was to make six films for Paramount and lift her to [...]

May 11, 2022 // 0 Comments

Peter Bowles (1936-2022)

I was much saddened by the passing of Peter Bowles aged 85. As a fan of Rumpole of the Bailey I enjoyed him as the smooth but thick Guthrie Featherstone QC, a typical John Mortimer depiction of a rich Tory. I have a connection to the programme. Jonathan Coy, who played the clerk Henry, is an old [...]

March 21, 2022 // 0 Comments

Life is a Cabaret …

… not if you buy ticket in advance on line. A couple of months ago I bought in advance a ticket for Cabaret at the Playhouse Theatre for the princely sum of £200. It starred Eddie Redmayme and the theatre was done up as the Kit Kat Club. My connection to Cabaret goes back to my childhood. The [...]

March 16, 2022 // 0 Comments

Where diversity and reality meet …

Both contributors to this organ and its followers know that the Rust’s mission statement is built around its stance of providing a “window upon the world” from the point of view of those of us who have passed beyond “the first flush of youth” yet retain possess an independence of mind and [...]

March 15, 2022 // 0 Comments

Casting to type – an interesting aspect of modern sensitivities

In these modern times of saturation-coverage of fashionable issues such as  “levelling up”, diversity, equality, transgender rights versus those who argue these affect “women born as women” (if I’m even allowed to use that phrase) – just “wokedom” [...]

February 5, 2022 // 0 Comments

Theatre review: Moscow City Ballet

At my advanced age I have no issue with admitting that firstly – on various levels – I don’t care in the slightest that much of modern life “as it is lived” seems to pass me by and – secondly – that there is very little that occurs which surprises me. Earlier this week I went in a [...]

January 8, 2022 // 0 Comments

The (no so) Good Life – a review

Yesterday I travelled down from London in order to attend a touring performance of a new stage version of the highly-popular BBC (Bob Larbey and John Esmonde-written) television comedy sit-com The Good Life (1975- 1978) at the Chichester Festival Theatre. In all honesty I was not expecting a great [...]

December 5, 2021 // 0 Comments

A bird in the hand is worth two in the Bush

Last night – upon a last-minute whim and with not a little anticipatory excitement – my wife and I went to the small-stage Minerva at the Chichester Festival Theatre for the last performance of three at the venue given by Sarah-Louise Young of her one-woman show conceived with Russell Lucas [...]

December 4, 2021 // 0 Comments

Just about anything goes

We all eventually succumb to the ‘sense’ that the world isn’t fair – after which life becomes largely a matter of how we cope with the knowledge … and the effects. I came to the realisation quite early. I was five or six years old at the time and taking part in my [...]

November 1, 2021 // 0 Comments

The Dresser

Half way through this matinee performance of Ronald Harwood’s play at the Theatre Royal I experienced a profound feeling of depression and pessimism for the future of British theatre. The reason? I was bombarded on my mobile by Covid regulations, greeted at the entrance with the words “Next [...]

October 1, 2021 // 0 Comments

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