FELA!

Ian Charleson Awards

We might have missed it but the publicity around the winners of this year’s Ian Charleson Awards seemed particularly muted.

Even the Sunday Times, the sponsor of the awards, gave little promotion to the nominations or winners.

This year marks 20 years since actor Ian Charleson died on 6 January 1990 of AIDS-related causes, only eight weeks after playing Hamlet in Richard Eyre’s production at the National Theatre.

He was an extremely accomplished actor, appearing in film (Chariots of Fire), TV (Oxbridge Blues) and numerous stage roles, both plays and musicals, including Guys and Dolls and Fool For Love.

The awards were established to commemorate and celebrate his life, and The Sunday Times and the National Theatre collaborate annually to present awards for outstanding performances anywhere in the UK, by actors under the age of 30 in a classical role.

Maybe the private awards lunch held annually should be webcast by the National, so everyone can celebrate the UK’s most promising actors?

Links:

Read Ian McKellen’s touching tribute to Ian Charleson’s performance in Hamlet at the National Theatre

Read Alan Bates’ 1990 tribute to Ian Charleson

New Old Vic season launched

Kevin Spacey pulls out the stops for his 7th year at the Old Vic with three heavy-weight directors

Hollywood actor and Old Vic artistic director Kevin Spacey has announced a new season of plays at the Old Vic Theatre in London.

Now in his seventh year at the theatre, Spacey revealed that he has attracted three of Britain’s leading directors to helm three revivals during 2010 and 2011.

Anthony Page, whose credits include last year’s Waiting for Godot on Broadway, will direct Noël Coward’s Design For Living, playing at the theatre from 3 September to 27 November 2010. The play will star Tom Burke (Telstar), Andrew Scott (Lennon Naked) and Lisa Dillon (Cranford). Written in 1932, the comedy concerns the complicated three-way relationship between two men and a woman.

Richard Eyre, who recently directed Kim Cattrall in Private Lives at the Vaudeville Theatre, will direct Georges Feydeau’s 1907 French farce A Flea In Her Ear, in a version by John Mortimer, from 4 December 2010 to 5 March 2011. The production will star Tom Hollander (In The Loop) and Lisa Dillon.

Finally, Thea Sharrock, who has enjoyed enormous success for her current National Theatre staging of Terence Rattigan’s After The Dance, will return to the playwright in his centenary year with a revival of his final play, Cause Célèbre, from 17 March to 11 June 2011.

Sharrock will also direct Alison Steadman in a new production of Noel Coward’s Blithe Spirit, coming to the Apollo Theatre from March 2011.

Spacey commented on the new season: “These are three great plays that all rather brilliantly explore the attitudes of their time and offer wonderful roles to actors.”

Current shows at the Old Vic and the Old Vic in the West End:

Book tickets to The Tempest at the Old Vic Theatre

Book tickets to As You Like It at the Old Vic Theatre

Book tickets to see The Prisoner of Second Avenue at the Vaudeville Theatre

London Assurance in cinemas tonight

Don’t forget that the National Theatre’s London Assurance will be shown in selected cinemas tonight, 28 June, as part of the NT Live programme.

The National’s latest big fat smash-hit sees Simon Russell Beale and Fiona Shaw star as Sir Harcourt and Lady Spanker  in Dion Boucicault’s hilarious classic comedy.

NT Live is an initiative to broadcast live performances of the National’s plays onto cinema screens in the UK and worldwide. The four show pilot season launched with Phèdre, starring Helen Mirren, All’s Well That Ends Well, Nation and The Habit of Art.

Check the NT Live website for times and cinemas.

After the Dance – Review

AFTER THE DANCE – Lyttleton Theatre (National Theatre)

How very strange that Terence Rattigan considered his second West End play, After the Dance, a dud and allowed it to languish unrevived during his lifetime. Despite the fact that it was well-reviewed when it opened in June 1939, and was even published, its short run of 60 performances convinced Rattigan that it was a failure. Like an outcast child, he refused to acknowledge its existence by not including it in his two volumes of collected plays, published in 1953.

Happily, the black-sheep of the playwright’s oeuvre has been gloriously rescued from the obscurity it emphatically did not deserve in director Thea Sharrock’s haunting production for the National Theatre. Seventy one years after it was first written, After the Dance emerges as one of its author’s finest plays – up there with The Browning Version, The Winslow Boy and Separate Tables.

It takes place in a sumptuous flat in London belonging to a personable albeit selfish historian called David Scott-Fowler (Benedict Cumberbatch), which he shares with his attractive wife Joan (Nancy Carroll), and, seemingly, a host of hanger’s on, including his young cousin Peter (John Heffernan) and long-time friend John Reid (Adrian Scarborough), who even occupies a room in the flat. Only one thing is wrong: David is in the process of drinking himself to death.

The play is set on the eve of the second world war, with David, Joan and John as part of a hedonistic set once known as the ‘bright young people’ and, whose days and nights, as they reach middle age and beyond, are fuelled by alcohol, gossip and non-stop partying.

The cardinal sin in their lexicon is to be boring. In fact, the word ‘boring’ is the play’s leitmotif against which everything is measured. So much so, that, in the 12 years they’ve been married, Joan cannot bring herself to admit to David that she’s deeply in love with him for fear of boring him.

Believing that their marriage, as successful as it is, has been predicated on companionship rather than deep emotional commitment, David has no compunction in falling requitedly in love with a determindly pushy younger woman called Helen (Faye Castelow), who also happens to be his cousin Peter’s fiancee. Helen manages to persuade David to allow her doctor brother George (Giles Cooper) to examine him, and when told that he has cirrhosis of the liver, she alone persuades him to stop drinking.

As the skies darken with impending war, a black cloud settles over the lives of David and Joan irrevocably changing everything. What initially appears on the surface to be a frivolous, rather typical West End comedy of hi-jinx and infidelity matures, over three acts, into a deeply moving drama involving a ‘lost’, between-the-wars generation who have failed to reach their potential either emotionally or intellectually.

As usual, Rattigan’s structural skills are evident throughout. The seamless way he manages to bring characters on and off stage without any obvious sense of contrivance is remarkable. I do, however, question one instance when, in order to leave Joan and Helen alone on stage, David is despatched to the cellar to bring up some wine. Do flats have wine cellars?

Music is also effectively used – most notably the 20′s hit song Avalon, which bears a marked resemblance to Puccini’s E lucevan le stelle from Tosca. In fact, on the two occasions we hear the first few notes of the Puccini, both are portents of doom – in the first instance Joan’s death mirrors that of Puccini’s heroine, in the second instance, the signs are not good for David.

Out of the large and uniformly excellent cast, Benedict Cumberbatch who makes David’s painful journey of self-discovery and its tragic consequences achingly moving, is superb. So is Adrian Scarborough’s best friend John, a kind of all-knowing, all-seeing Greek choruscum- resident clown, who, by play’s end, takes stock of his own worthless life and sets about attempting to change.

Nancy Carroll’s Joan breaks your heart, and Faye Costelow’s Helen, whose determination is anything but redolent of the ‘lost generation’, is, for all the damage she causes, a positive force, and, you imagine, a survivor.

A terrific set by Hildegard Bechtler puts the finishing gloss on this wonderful, notto- be-missed production.

CLIVE HIRSCHHORN. Courtesy of This Is London.

West End Star Watch: Update

Our regular round-up of theatre names hitting town or making the news. This issue includes Alison Steadman, Jenny Galloway, Catherine Zeta-Jones, David Haid, Robert Lindsay and Anthony Sher.

ALISON STEADMAN

Director of the moment Thea Sharrock, who enjoyed rave notices last week for her new production of Terrence Rattigan’s After the Dance at the National Theatre, will turn to Noel Coward later this year.

A new production of Noel Coward’s Blithe Spirit will materialise at the Theatre Royal Bath and then transfer to the Apollo Theatre from 2 March 2011 starring award-winning actress Alison Steadman (Gavin and Stacey) as Madame Arcati.

No stranger to Blithe Spirit, Sharrock directed a 2004 production of the play at the Savoy Theatre starring Penelope Keith. The Noel Coward classic has had numerous UK revivals in the last few years. The director told Baz in the Daily Mail that, “You cannot really mess with those old boys  -  the structure is so particular”. Indeed.

The only question is, will Rupert Everett reprise his recent Broadway performance as Charles Condomine for the production?

JENNY GALLOWAY

Amongst many standout performances in Thea Sharrock’s production of After the Dance is that of Jenny Galloway as Miss Potter, an actress who is s one of the most accomplished stars you’ve (probably) never heard of. She has recently been cast in Cameron Mackintosh’s enormous 25th anniversary concert version of Les Miserables at the O2 Arena on 3 October playing Madame Thénardier, a role she played in the London and New York productions.

Galloway’s career spans musicals and plays including two Olivier Award winning performances – as Rosie in Mamma Mia! (2000) and Luce in The Boys from Syracuse (1992). She also originated the role of Mrs Brill in Mackintosh’s production of Mary Poppins – in London and Broadway – and recently appeared in the Donmar in the West End’s production of Madame De Sade with Judi Dench.

DAVID HAIG

The great migration of classic TV shows to stage (see Porridge, Inspector Morse, Dad’s Army etc) shows no sign of abating. Jenny Galloway’s fellow Mary Poppins cast mate David Haig, who originated the role of Mr Banks in the show, will be back in London this Autumn in a stage production of TV classic Yes, Prime Minister.

Haig plays Prime Minister Jim Hacker in the Chichester production that will run at the Gielgud Theatre from 17 September, penned by the show’s original TV writers Antony Jay and Jonathan Lynn. The comedy will also star Henry Goodman as Sir Humphrey Appleby.

ANTHONY SHER

A big name he may be, but Anthony Sher is not averse to playing the odd small venue: he will debut in Arthur Miller’s Broken Glass at the Tricycle Theatre from 30 September, directed by Iqbal Khan. Let’s hope it also transfers to the West End to follow the current Arthur Miller success in town – All My Sons at the Apollo Theatre starring David Suchet and Zoe Wanamaker.

CATHERINE ZETA-JONES

Anthony Sher’s cousin, Ronald Harwood, received a knighthood this week in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List for his enormous contribution to stage and screen writing, including classic theatrical play The Dresser. Congrats also go to Catherine Zeta-Jones who has been appointed a CBE. Currently wowing them on Broadway in A Little Night Music, here’s hoping this week proves a double-success for Mrs Michael Douglas and she wins a Tony award tonight for her performance in the show.

ROBERT LINDSAY

The Novello Theatre will see out Tap Dogs in September and follow with Onassis on 30 September starring Robert Lindsay. He will resurrect his performance as Aristotle Onassis in Martin Sherman’s play Onassis following a run in Derby. Based on the last years of the controversial Greek tycoon, the play was originally produced as Aristo at Chichester to mixed reviews but with glowing praise for Lindsay’s performance. Sherman and director Nancy Meckler have subsequently rewritten the piece.

The cast will also include Tom Austen, Liz Crowther, Ben Grove, Robert Hastie, John Hodgkinson, Sue Kelvin, Graeme Taylor and Gawn Grainger.

Hot new shows in June

June is proving to be a busy month for West End Theatre with a number of high-profile openings, including work from big name directors such as Sam Mendes, Richard Eyre and Matthew Warchus.

At the National Theatre, a revival of Terence Rattigan’s After The Dance starts previews from 1 June 2010 featuring Benedict Cumberbatch, and Richard Eye directs Moira Buffini’s new play Welcome to Thebes from 15 June. Also starting on the 15th is Tap Dogs at the Novello Theatre, which returns to London starring hot song and dance man Adam Garcia.

Wartime land girls play Lilies on the Land begins previews at the Arts Theatre from 8 June, and at the Almeida Ruth Wilson stars in a stage version of Ingmar Bergman’s Through a Glass Darkly from 10 June.

The Old Vic sees the next of its Bridge Project plays start on 12 June, in a new Sam Mendes production of As You Like It starring Stephen Dillane and Juliet Rylance.

Sticking with the Shakespeare theme, the Open Air Theatre in Regent’s Park starts previews of Shakespeare’s The Comedy of Errors on 24 June, and the following day the Lyric Hammersmith transfers its sell-out fright-night chiller Ghost Stories to the Duke of York’s Theatre.

Finally, all-star, Broadway-bound comedy La Bete opens at the Comedy Theatre from 26 June starring Joanna Lumley, Mark Rylance and David Hyde Pierce.

MORE INFORMATION AND BOOKING

AFTER THE DANCE

National Theatre, from 1 June 2010

With next year’s centenary of playwright Terence Rattigan fast approaching, expect to see a number of high-profile revivals of his work – both on stage and screen.

This new production of his 1939 play After the Dance is directed for the National by Thea Sharrock (The Misanthrope, Equus) and is a subtle expose of the hedonistic 1920s generation, dealing with themes of repression and love.

As the world races towards catastrophe, a crowd of Mayfair socialites party their way to oblivion. At its centre is David, who idles away his sober moments researching a futile book until the beautiful Helen decides to save him, shattering his marriage and learning too late the depth of both David’s indolence and his wife’s undeclared love. But with finances about to crash and humanity on the brink of global conflict, the drink keeps flowing and the revellers dance on.

Book tickets to After the Dance at the National Theatre in London

LILIES ON THE LAND

Arts Theatre, from 8 June 2010

Lilies On The Land is moving and funny portrait of some of Britain’s pluckiest, unsung heroes. This charming, gripping tale celebrates the Women’s Land Army during World War II – an extraordinary episode in Britain’s history. This play charts the personal journeys of four women who sign up to become Land Girls, determined to work backbreaking hours on the land in a bid to do their bit for the war effort.

Based on letters and interviews with the original Land Girls, these women, who are all from different backgrounds and torn from their families, must survive the hardships of farming and the pressures of war. The cast of this compelling play features Rosalind Cressy, Sarah Finch, Dorothy Lawrence and Kali Peacock.

Book tickets to Lilies on the Land at the Arts Theatre in London

AS YOU LIKE IT

The Old Vic, from 12 June

Part of the successful Bridge Project – a transatlantic collaboration between the Old Vic in London and the Brooklyn Academy of Music in New York – this year sees Oscar winning director Sam Mendes direct Shakespeare’s As You Like It and The Tempest.

The company is led by Stephan Dillane, Christian Camargo, Ron Cephas Jones and Juliet Rylance.

As You Like It is Shakespeare’s pastoral romantic comedy that features Juliet Rylance and Michelle Beck as the heroines Rosalind and Celia, and Christian Camargo and Thomas Sadoski as Orlando and Touchstone.

Young British actress Rylance, the daughter of acclaimed actor Mark Rylance, has appeared on stage both in New York and London, including Shakespeare’s Globe. Dillane, who plays Jacques in As You Like It, returns to the stage for the first time since winning a Tony Award for Tom Stoppard’s The Real Thing.

Books tickets to As You Like It at the Old Vic Theatre in London

TAP DOGS

Novello Theatre, from 15 June 2010

Adam Garcia will return to the London stage this June in the Australian dance show Tap Dogs.

Tap Dogs is a worldwide hit that combines the strength and power of workmen with the precision and talent of tap dancing. The adrenalin-pumped cast of this award-winning show inject raw passion and power into the ultimate visual dance spectacular.

Adam Garcia started his career in 1992 in the Australian tour of Hot Shoe Shuffle – which transferred to the West End – and went on to perform in Grease, Saturday Night Fever, Wicked and as a judge on Sky 1 entertainment show Got To Dance.

Book tickets to Tap Dogs at the Novello Theatre in London

GHOST STORIES

Duke of York’s Theatre, from 25 June 2010

A truly terrifying theatrical experience written and directed by The League of Gentlemen’s master of the macabre, Jeremy Dyson, and Andy Nyman, co-creator and director of Derren Brown’s television and stage shows and star of Dead Set and Severance.

As three men gather together, each has an uncanny, chilling tale to tell. Ghost Stories played a hugely successful run at the Lyric Hammersmith before transferring to the Duke of York’s theatre in the West End. The show stars Nicholas Burns, David Cardy, Ryan Gage and Andy Nyman.

Strictly for theatregoers aged 16 and older.

“Brilliant and deeply unsettling” The Telegraph
“A pant-wetter of a night. It’s terrifying” Daily Mail
“Yes, I gulped and others screeched” The Times
“Hugely entertaining piece of theatre” The Stage

Book tickets to Ghost Stories at the Duke of York’s Theatre in London

LA BETE

Comedy Theatre, from 26 June 2010

American playwright David Hirson’s rollicking 1991 play, La Bete is a comic tour de force about Elomire (David Hyde Pierce – “Frasier”), a high-minded classical dramatist who loves only the theatre, and Valere (Mark Rylance – “Jerusalem”), a low-brow street clown who loves only himself. When the fickle princess (Joanna Lumley – “Absolutely Fabulous”) decides she’s grown weary of Elomire’s royal theatre troupe, he and Valere are left fighting for survival as art squares off with ego in a literary showdown for the ages.

Other cast include Stephen Ouimette, Lisa Joyce, Greta Lee, Robert Lonsdale, Michael Milligan, Liza Sadovy and Sally Wingert. The play will be directed by Matthew Warchus and run for a limited season at the Comedy Theatre before heading to Broadway.

Book tickets to La Bete at the Comedy Theatre in London

Sunday shows in the West End

An increasing number of West End shows are now playing on a Sunday, with much of the centre of London open for shopping, eating and entertainment all weekend.

Shows playing on a Sunday include Jersey Boys, the award-winning Broadway musical at the Prince Edward Theatre in London based on the music and lives of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons; Legally Blonde at the Savoy Theatre; Thriller Live at the Lyric Theatre; Stomp at the Ambassadors Theatre; The Lion King at the Lyceum Theatre; selected plays at the National Theatre; Australian dance sensation Tap Dogs at the Novello Theatre; terrifying Ghost Stories at the Duke of York’s Theatre; and classic family story The Railway Children in an exciting new venue at Waterloo station.

New shows coming to London that will also feature Sunday performances include Andrew Lloyd Webber’s multi-million pound production of The Wizard of Oz at the London Palladium, and Simon Russell-Beale and Jonathan Groff in Deathtrap at the Noel Coward Theatre.

SUNDAY SHOWS

Nation at the National Theatre – Save £18

Save £18 on tickets to see Nation at the National Theatre in London

Offer valid for selected performances

The National Theatre follows His Dark Materials, Coram Boy and War Horse with a spectacular stage adaptation ofTerry Pratchett’s latest witty and challenging adventure story Nation.

Adapted by award-winning playwright Mark Ravenhill, Nation is set in a parallel world, in 1860. Two teenagers are thrown together by a tsunami that has destroyed Mau’s village and left Daphne shipwrecked on his South Pacific island, thousands of miles from home. One wears next to nothing, the other a long white dress; neither speaks the other’s language; somehow they must learn to survive.

As starving refugees gather, Daphne delivers a baby, milks a pig, brews beer and does battle with a mutineer. Mau fights cannibal Raiders, discovers the world is round and questions the reality of his tribe’s fiercely patriarchal gods. Together they come of age, overseen by a foul-mouthed parrot, as they discard old doctrine to forge a new Nation.

“Mark Ravenhill’s adaptation of Terry Pratchett’s Nation will hold adults and children in thrall.” (Daily Telegraph)

Suitable for 10 years +

Save £18 on tickets to see Nation at the National Theatre in London

Knighthood for National Chief

Nicholas Hytner and Patrick Stewart Knighted in New Year’s Honours List

The Queen’s New Year’s Honours list includes a number of high-profile theatre leaders and stars.

Acclaimed stage and screen actor Patrick Stewart and National Theatre artistic director Nicholas Hytner both receive knighthoods in recognition of their services to drama.

Also Mamma Mia! director Phyllida Lloyd, actress Margeret Tyzack, Barbican Centre artistic director Graham Sheffield, founder of the National Youth Music Theatre Jeremy James Taylor and director and arts chief Graham Devlin are appointed CBEs. Artistic director of Northern Ballet Theatre David Nixon and Manchester Royal Exchange artistic director Braham Murray are appointed OBEs.

Nicholas Hytner was said to be “delighted and flattered” to receive a knighthood. He has been artistic director of the National Theatre since 2003, with many direction credits including The History Boys, The Habit of Art, The Madness of King George and Miss Saigon.

Patrick Stewart, who received an OBE in 2001, is perhaps best known for his screen roles in Star Trek and The X Men. He recently appeared in Waiting for Godot at the Theatre Royal Haymarket alongside Sir Ian McKellen. He said, that, “this is an honour that embraces those actors, directors and creative teams who have in these recent years helped fill my life with inspiration, companionship and sheer fun.”

Phyllida Lloyd directed both the stage and screen productions of international hit musical Mamma Mia! and said that her CBE was “a complete surprise. I feel humbled”.

Margeret Tyzack is a veteran theatre performer who most recently starred alongside Helen Mirren in Phedre at the National Theatre. Last year she appeared in Enid Bagnold’s The Chalk Garden at the Donmar Warehouse, for which she won the Best Actress award in the Critics’ Circle Theatre Awards and the 2009 Olivier Award for Best Actress.

Next Page »