Screen International’s Stars of Tomorrow tips Phoebe Fox for the top

I’m happy to see that Phoebe Fox is featured in Screen International’s annual Stars of Tomorrow report this week.

Whilst watching Anya Reiss’s excellent new play The Acid Test in May at the Royal Court, I was not alone in getting that tingle-down-the-spine feeling over Fox’s performance.

A recent RADA graduated, Fox’s next job is There Is A War at the National Theatre, part of their season of short plays in the National’s newly opened back-stage venue Paintframe.

Fox tells Screen International that she has ambitions to work in film as well as theatre. I’d say that this is a pretty safe bet: watching her performance in The Acid Test reminded me of the first time I saw Carey Mulligan act, in a read-through for My Boy Jack in 2007.

Also good to see that Fox’s fellow co-star in The Acid Test Vanessa Kirby is on the list, along with Robert Emms, who starred as Albert Narracott in War Horse at the New London Theatre and also features in Steven Spielberg’s up-and-coming film, and Sebastian Armesto, who recently appeared in Rocket to the Moon and A Woman Killed With Kindness at the National Theatre.

LINKS

Screen International Stars of Tomorrow

 

Memorial Service to be held for Pam Gems

The life and work of award-winning playwright Pam Gems will be celebrated at a memorial service in London this Sunday, 3 July 2011.

The remembrance service will be held at 3.30pm at St James’s Church, Piccadilly, London and all are welcome to attend.

Stars paying tribute to the author of plays including Piaf, Marlene and Stanley include Elena Roger, who will sing numbers from Piaf, and readings from Frances Barber and Isla Blair.

It is believed that actors including Ian McKellen, Timothy Spall and Anna Chancellor, directors Nancy Meckler and Sean Mathias and singers Sue Parrish and Annie Lennox will also attend.

LINKS

More Pam Gems news and awards information

Shafting the incumbent: When shows gazump

In the business world, it always feels slightly wrong when a company heralds the arrival of a fabulous new executive whilst their predecessor is still sat at their desks.

And it happens in the theatre world too. In casting, there’s rarely a chance for the hoofer sweating away night-after-night to announce their departure before the press release goes out about the bright young thing taking their place (Legally Blonde recently announcing that Carley Stenson is to replace Susan McFadden as Elle Woods caused much gasping, least of all from the rest of the cast, who read it first on Twitter!)

And there is nothing more brutal and shameless than a keen show busting to get into a West End venue. Even bastions of good taste such as the RSC aren’t shy of a little venue-stealing, announcing last month that Matilda would crash into the Cambridge Theatre in October despite Chicago’s long-running status at the venue, thereby prompting lots of speculation about the future of that show.

The National has also followed suit, leaking news last week that their James Cordon hit One Man, Two Guvnors will transfer to the Adelphi, current home of Love Never Dies, in November. The news sent “Love Must Die”-hards into spasms of delight and left Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Really Useful Group to then have to follow with a closing notice.

LND is especially interesting because Lloyd Webber’s Really Useful Group only part-owns the theatre: rumours have circulated for some time that the other owner of the Adelphi, the Nederlander Organization,  has been unhappy with the income they are generating from the show (a significant part of a venue’s revenue comes from sales of merchandise and catering, and so depends on getting people through the doors).

I suppose it has to be the way. If you left the incumbent to make the announcement it would never happen, at least not quickly enough for the upstart. But there must be a way to do it with dignity. I tell you, showbusiness… it’s ruthless!

We’ve seen the future of theatre and it’s going to be comfortable!

Whenever we survey London theatre audiences there is one complaint that comes up again and again.

“We know that London theatres are historic and built for small Victorians, but why do the seats have to be so damn uncomfortable?”

Well good news is here. The largest theatre owner in the West End, the Ambassador Theatre Group, plan to address the back-ache with the roll-out of a new theatre seat.

The award-winning ProBax seats, we are told, are also available in Lotus cars (sounds comfy) and “use dual density foams to encourage an anatomically correct posture in the seat occupant… and dramatically increases the comfort experience for the seat user.”

The first venue to be fitted with the new seats will be the Fortune Theatre on Russell Street in Covent Garden, home to The Woman in Black. We recently featured the venue, as it is getting a much-needed external makeover, but ATG are also making the inside more comfortable with the new ergonomic seating.

Plans are afoot to roll the seats out across ATG’s other venues in London and the UK. Let’s hope that other theatre owners swiftly follow suit.

LINKS

Book tickets to The Woman in Black at the Fortune Theatre in London

More news on the Fortune Theatre

Wicked and Billy Elliot perform at free Summer launch event

It’s a big week to catch free performances of your favourite musicals. Ahead of this weekend’s annual West End Live event in Trafalgar Square, this Wednesday sees an opportunity to catch a free lunchtime concert featuring Victoria-based musicals Wicked and Billy Elliot.

The occasion is the launch of this year’s Great British Summer promotion, held this Wednesday 15 June 2011 at 12.30pm at Cardinal Place roof garden in Victoria, London.

Great British Summer runs big outdoor screens in three London locations, showing key Wimbledon tennis matches and a number of Hollywood movies over the summer. Screens will be placed at Cardinal Place in Victoria, Bankside on the Southbank and New Street Square in Holborn.

The free performance on Wednesday will feature the casts of Wicked and Billy Elliot, supported by The Gleeks and the West End Gospel Choir.

West End Live this weekend (Saturday 18 and Sunday 19 June) will see a host of musicals perform a free concert in Trafalgar Square in London.

LINKS

Great British Summer website

World premiere of new play Park Avenue Cat starring Corrie’s Gray O’Brien

Former Corrie actor Gray O’Brien, who played killer Tony Gordon in the long-running soap, is set to tread the boards in London this summer.

The Coronation Street actor will star in new US comedy Park Avenue Cat by Frank Strausser at the Arts Theatre in London, from 1 July 2011.

O’Brien will co-star with Josefina Gabrielle (Sweet Charity), Tessa Peake-Jones (Only Fools and Horses) and Daniel Weyman (Nicholas Nickleby) in the show, which gets its world premiere at the Arts.

The comedy features a love triangle set over couples therapy, and is directed by Glen Walford and produced by Louise Chantal.

Park Avenue Cat replaces current Arts show Bette & Joan, which runs at the theatre until 25 June 2011.

LINKS

Book tickets to Park Avenue Cat at the Arts Theatre

Book tickets to Bette & Joan at the Arts Theatre

Sunday Times Rich List: Gap narrows between Lloyd Webber and Mackintosh for top West End spot

Ahead of publishing its annual Sunday Times Rich List this Sunday, 8 May 2011 , the Times newspaper has revealed that Andrew Lloyd Webber has clung on to his top spot to be the richest man in UK theatre, valued at £680m, but down £20m on last year.

The Love Never Dies and The Phantom of the Opera composer, who launched his new production of The Wizard of Oz earlier this year at the London Palladium, will celebrate Phantom’s 25th anniversary this October in the West End.

He remains  narrowly ahead of his long-time collaborator and rival producer and West End theatre owner Cameron Mackintosh (Betty Blue Eyes, Les Miserables, Mary Poppins) who is valued at £675m, up £40m on last year. This in turn is a whopping £325m up on 2009.

The impresario has recently launched a successful new, original production in the West End, with Betty Blue Eyes doing good business within one of his Delfont Mackintosh-owned venues, the Novello Theatre, starring Sarah Lancashire and Reece Shearsmith.

In the past year Mackintosh also celebrated the 25th anniversary of his most successful show, Les Miserables, with a major concert at the O2 Arena in London and follow-up DVD and CD merchandising, and a major US tour of Mary Poppins starring Caroline Sheen.

Also in the list of the richest entertainment people in the UK  is Billy Elliot composer Elton John, who was valued at £195m, up £10m on last year. John and his partner David Furnish have recently produced Larry Kramer’s play The Normal Heart on Broadway. The show has been nominated for five Tony Awards and there are ambitions to bring the production to London.

LINKS

The Rich List

The Rich List 2010 – Showbusiness people

Alan Titchmarch celebrates West End musicals

All week on ITV1 in the UK, TV host Alan Titchmarsh has been celebrating West End musicals on his daytime show.

His weekday The Alan Titchmarsh Show, running Mondays to Fridays at 3pm on ITV1, has seen the cast of Wicked (Monday 2 May), Grease (Tuesday), Les Miserables with Gareth Gates (Wednesday), Legally Blonde (today, Thursday 5 May at 3pm) and Billy Elliot (Friday) perform in front of a live studio audience.

LINKS

Watch Wicked perform on the Alan Titchmarsh Show

Watch Grease

Watch Les Miserables

Watch Legally Blonde

Tony Awards Nominations Announced Today

Don’t forget that the 2011 Tony Awards nominations are announced today, Tuesday 3 May 2011.

The nominations will be presented live on the TonyAwards.com website by Matthew Broderick and Anika Noni Rose, from 1.30 pm London time (8.30 am New York time) today.

The nominations announcement will take place at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts’s Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center at Lincoln Center.

All 26 competitive categories will be revealed. To be eligible productions had to open during the 2010-2011 Broadway season, which ended on 28 April 2011.

Performers tipped to receive nominations include Daniel Radcliffe, Bobby Canavale, Edie Falco, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Al Pacino, Mark Rylance and John Laroquette amongst others. Shows predicted to do well in the nominations include a number of shows that have transferred from London including Priscilla Queen of the Desert, Sister Act, War Horse, La Bete and Jerusalem.

Following the nominations announcement, a “Meet the Nominees” press reception will be held on 4 May and a Tony Nominees’ Luncheon on 31 May. All this leads up to the 65th Annual Tony Awards ceremony itself, which takes place on 12 June 2011 at the Beacon Theatre in New York.

LINKS

Tony Awards 2011 – nominations

Tony Awards website

Awards section: See all past Tony Awards winners

Book Broadway Tickets

Phantom of the Opera 25th anniversary celebrations

We’ve got the celebration poster, now we are waiting for news of the celebrations.

Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical The Phantom of the Opera will celebrate its 25th anniversary this year: Phantom first previewed on 27 September 1986 at Her Majesty’s Theatre in London, with its official opening night on 9th October, and it has played at the venue ever since.

Lloyd Webber’s Really Useful group and the show’s producer, Cameron Mackintosh, are rumoured to be planning a 25th anniversary concert for the musical, following Mackintosh’s large-scale concert celebrations at the O2 last year for the 25th anniversary of Les Miserables.

The last celebration for The Phantom of the Opera took place on 23 October last year, to mark the 10,000th performance of the show.

Further speculation over a concert or special performance of the show has been fuelled by current star of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Phantom follow-up Love Never Dies, Ramin Karimloo. He posted on Twitter last month that he would be appearing in the 25th anniversary celebrations, and an Ebay auction has been held in aid of Comic Relief, to win ”two great tickets to the Celebration of Phantom’s 25th Birthday in October 2011 – when he [Karimloo] will don the mask as the original Phantom one more time”.

Michael Crawford, currently playing the Wizard in Lloyd Webber’s new production of The Wizard of Oz at the London Palladium, originated the role of the Phantom, alongside Sarah Brightman as Christine. Crawford and Brightman would be expected to take part in any celebrations for the show.

Over 80 million people have seen the show worldwide, ranking it the most popular entertainment of all time.

LINKS

Book tickets to The Phantom of the Opera at Her Majesty’s Theatre in London

Book tickets to Love Never Dies at the Adelphi Theatre in London

Book tickets to The Wizard of Oz at the London Palladium