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Theatre

Bill Naughton

I  was asked to submit films to a list based on the theme of “As good as or better than the book on which it was based”. One of my submissions Alfie was correctly rejected as it began life not as a novel but a BBC radio play. I should have known this as the writer Bill Naughton was a [...]

May 20, 2020 // 0 Comments

You win some … and lose some

Listening to the radio overnight I thought I heard that sales of jigsaws – according to one interviewee, a representative of that industry – have soared over 800% since the beginning of the coronavirus crisis, particularly among the 24 to 35 age group. This figures, because – if [...]

May 2, 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

History as bunk (or maybe not)

It inevitably comes with the territory that dramatic depictions of historical figures and events have a tenuous relationship with the actualité. On several levels there is nothing particularly bizarre in that statement if you think about it. Let’s begin with the fact that virtually all dramatic [...]

January 4, 2019 // 0 Comments

Biopics – the complexities of a difficult art form

Today I take the risk of venturing into territory upon which I am no expert – movies, and a particular genre at that – without any justification for doing so other than, like any observer travelling upon the time-honoured proverbial (legal) Clapham omnibus, I am entitled to hold opinions and [...]

October 24, 2018 // 0 Comments

Me and My Girl/Chichester

I did not expect my guest – the actress who starred in the London production alongside Robert Lindsay and then Enn Reitel – to like this Me and My Girl but I thought I might. I did not. The story resembles Pygmalion. A cheeky working class South Londoner (Bill Snibson) is located and [...]

August 14, 2018 // 0 Comments

Weimar Cabaret /The Barbican Theatre

In my last post I reviewed a nonogenerian still going strong (Burt Bacharach) and now an octogenarian Barry Humphries, still performing with aplomb. Born in Melbourne in 1934, law and philosophy graduate Humphries is something of a renaissance man. He starred in Oliver! as Fagin in the sixties but [...]

July 27, 2018 // 0 Comments

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