Design for Living – Ticket Offer Save £15

Sexy, stylish new production of Noel Coward’s Design for Living at the Old Vic

SPECIAL OFFER: Save £15 on tickets to Design for Living at the Old Vic

If you are feeling spontaneous this week you can save £15 on Noel Coward’s Design for Living at the Old Vic Theatre in London.

Anthony Page directs Coward’s 1932 comedy about the complicated three-way relationship between two men and a woman, starring Tom Burke (Telstar), Andrew Scott (Lennon Naked) and Lisa Dillon (Cranford).

The show enjoyed terrific reviews last week, with The Times and The Sunday Times both giving the show 5 STARS.

BUT HURRY – the offer is only valid for performances this week, until Saturday 25 September.

BOOK NOW: Save £15 on tickets to Design for Living at the Old Vic

RUTHIE HENSHALL in Blithe Spirit

Ruthie Henshall joins the cast of Noel Coward’s Blithe Spirit

It’s time to reassess Ruthie once again.

For years she has won plaudits and praise for her musical talents, appearing in a wealth of big musicals including She Loves Me (for which she won an Olivier Award), Crazy For You, Chicago, Miss Saigon and Oliver!

But we shouldn’t forget that her talent for comedy, and experience of appearing in a variety of plays, will stand her in good stead when she appears as the beautiful, sultry Elvira in Noel Coward’s witty comedy Blithe Spirit (opens at the Apollo Theatre in London from 2 March 2011).

Henshall will be in good company, playing alongside Alison Steadman (Gavin and Stacey) as Madame Arcati, and Cold Feet’s Hermione Norris (Spooks) and Robert Bathurst (Alex) as Charles and Ruth Condomine.

Noel Coward’s comedy will be directed by Thea Sharrock, who recently enjoyed enormous success for her production of Terence Rattigan’s After The Dance at the National Theatre. She will return to Rattigan next year for his Centenary by directing Cause Célèbre, which will open at the Old Vic Theatre on 17 March, a few days after Blithe Spirit opens in London.

Ruthie trained at Laine Theatre Arts in Epsom, Surrey, swiftly landing a role in a touring production of A Chorus Line before making her West End debut in Cats at the New London Theatre.

Then at 21she was cast as Ellen in Miss Saigon at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, followed by Children of Eden at the Prince Edward Theatre and then a season at the Chichester Festival Theatre, performing in Shakespeare, Moliere and the musical Valentine’s Day.

Ruthie then played Fantine in Les Miserables at the Palace Theatre, and followed this in 1993 by returning to the Prince Edward Theatre to play Polly in Crazy for You, for which she was nominated for her first Olivier award. Her next part got her the award – playing Amalia Balash in She Loves Me at the Savoy Theatre.

Next up she played Nancy in 1996 in Sam Mendes’ revival of Lionel Bart’s Oliver!, then a quick Chichester run playing Polly in Divorce Me, Darling before a biggie – starring as Roxie Hart in the London production of Chicago at the Adelphi Theatre.

She then went to Broadway, appearing in Ziegfeld Follies of 1936 before playing Velma Kelly in the Broadway production of Chicago, Miss Saigon and Putting It Together.

Back in London she starred as Peggy Sue in Peggy Sue Got Married, and then in 2001 took a part in The Vagina Monologues at the Arts Theatre. After playing Velma in the London production of Chicago, and touring the UK in Fosse, she joined the cast of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s The Woman In White at the Palace Theatre.

In 2006 she returned to New York to play Emma in David Ives’s two-hander The Other Woman and in 2007 starred in the Encores! production of Stairway to Paradise at City Centre.

UK and US concert tours followed, including her Proms debut at the Royal Albert Hall in 2004, plus a feature film – Ahrens and Menken’s A Christmas Carol with Kelsey Grammer and Jane Krakowski – and TV roles in Law and Order and Mysteries of 71st Street for CBS.

In 2008 she took the lead in Marguerite at the Theatre Royal Haymarket.

Book tickets to Blithe Spirit at the Apollo Theatre in London

Opening This Week in the West End

It’s an eclectic mix of shows that are opening this week in the West End, as the autumn season of new productions begins apace. From Wonder Woman to Michael Gambon via Noel Coward and Sebastian Faulks, there’s something for everyone.

On Tuesday 14 September, Les Miserables returns to the Barbican Theatre, where it all began 25 years ago. A brand new production of Boublil and Schonberg’s legendary musical has been touring the UK to celebrate its 25th anniversary and completes its run at the Barbican – but for only 22 performances. The show features a dynamic young cast including Gareth Gates.

Noel Coward is never far from the West End, and Wednesday 15 September sees the opening night of Design for Living at the Old Vic Theatre in Waterloo. Anthony Page directs Coward’s 1932 comedy about the complicated three-way relationship between two men and a woman. The play stars Tom Burke (Telstar), Andrew Scott (Lennon Naked) and Lisa Dillon (Cranford) and runs until 27 November.

On the same day Krapp’s Last Tape starts previews at the Duchess Theatre starring one of Britain’s most accomplished actors, Michael Gambon. The Dublin Gate Theatre transfer of Samuel Beckett’s classic enjoyed rave reviews at the Gate directed by Michael Colgan. The 50 minute show is playing two shows a night, keeping Mr Gambon nicely occupied.

On Friday 17 September  the fabulous Lynda Carter, aka Wonder Women, pops to town for two shows of her Lynda Carter: At Last solo sing-fest. Best known to millions as TV superhero Wonder Woman, Lynda Carter: At Last is a musical evening to celebrate her recent solo album. Following dates in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Washington, Lynda Carter will appear in London on 17 and 18 September 2010 at the Garrick Theatre.

Also on Friday, the Chichester Festival Theatre’s sell-out production of Yes, Prime Minister starts previews at the Gielgud Theatre starring Henry Goodman and David Haig. The original writers of the BBC series, Antony Jay & Jonathan Lynn, have reunited for this hilarious 30th anniversary production, promising much topical wit and political spin-doctoring: Jim Hacker and Sir Humphrey Appleby are back and this time to face the country in financial meltdown!

The following day, Saturday 18 September, Trevor Nunn is back in the West End directing Rachel Wagstaff’s adaptation of the best-selling Sebastian Faulks novel Birdsong. The play starts previews at the Comedy Theatre starring British movie star Ben Barnes (The Chronicles of Narnia), Nicholas Farrell, Iain Mitchell, Genevieve O’Reilly and Lee Ross, and tells the moving story of one man’s journey through an all consuming love affair and into the horror of the First World War.

BOOKING INFO

Book tickets to Design for Living at the Old Vic Theatre

Books tickets to Les Miserables 25th anniversary production at the Barbican Theatre

Book tickets to Krapp’s Last Tape at the Duchess Theatre

Book tickets to Yes, Prime Minister at the Gielgud Theatre

Book tickets to Birdsong at the Comedy Theatre

Book tickets to Lynda Carter: At Last at the Garrick Theatre

Applause Magazine – September 1997

Published between1996 and 1997, Applause was a newsstand and subscription magazine devoted to UK theatre.

Edited by Clive Hirschhorn, it was published by ticket agency Applause and aimed to provide theatregoers with informed comment, interviews, features, reviews, and gossip about the plays and players making news in both London and New York. It also provided special offers and discounts on West End shows and event.

CONTENTS

Issue 12, September 1997

Read Applause magazine, issue 12, September 1997

Regulars

OFFSTAGE GOSSIP

ONSTAGE REVIEWS

DIARY

APPLAUSE THEATRE CLUB

NED SHERRIN

AUDIO BOOK REVIEW

BOOK REVIEW

NEW FACES LIZA WALKER

SPECTRUM DANCE, TV & OPERA

OFFSTAGE BROADWAY GOSSIP

COMPENDIUM

SHOWS THAT MAKE A DIFFERENCE – LORD GRADE

Features

THE BODY ELECTRA – ZOE WANAMAKER

MATT WOLF – DOOM & GLOOM LOOM

SIMON RUSSELL BEALE INTERVIEW

THE DAY I MET – NOEL COWARD

ANDRE LEWIS – ROYAL WINNIPEG BALLET

ADAM LONG INTERVIEW

READ

LINKS

PDF: Read Applause magazine, issue 12, September 1997

ISSUU: Read Applause magazine, issue 12, September 1997

Binkie Beaumont

27 March 1908 – 22 March 1973

Hugh Beaumont, famously known as Binkie Beaumont, was one of the most powerful West End theatre managers of his, or any other, generation.

As co-founder and managing director of play producers H.M. Tennent Ltd, he controlled much of the West End for forty years. He was famously very publicity shy, avoiding his picture being in the papers and leaving scant details about his parents, upbringing, education or even his real name.

He worked out of a small office above the Gielgud Theatre (then the Globe Theatre) on Shaftesbury Avenue and at one time was running a staggering fourteen productions at the same time in London. From 1936 to 1973 the company produced over 400 plays, musicals and revues, covering every aspect of British theatre from big musicals such as My Fair Lady to the edgy new work of Joe Orton.

He touched the lives of many of the most famous writers and actors of the Twentieth Century, forming close working relationships with people such as Noel Coward, Terence Rattigan, Emlyn Williams, Cecil Beaton, John Gielgud, Vivien Leigh, Ralph Richardson, Peggy Ashcroft and Edith Evans.

For much of his time in the West End, he was assisted by the efforts of H.M. Tennent’s talented press agent Vivienne “No News Is Good News” Byerley (1906-1995, obituary).

BOOKSHOP

Binkie Beaumont: Eminence Grise of the West End Theatre, 1933-73 (Richard Huggett)

Angus McBean Portraits (Terence Pepper)

Upper Circle: A Theatrical Chronicle (Kitty Black)

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 Design For Living at the Old Vic Theatre

Book tickets to A Flea In Her Ear at the Old Vic Theatre

Book tickets to Cause Célèbre at the Old Vic Theatre

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

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.

Private Lives – Vaudeville Theatre – Reviews Round-up

Round up of reviews of PRIVATE LIVES starring Kim Cattrall at the Vaudeville Theatre in London

STAR RATINGS

Evening Standard

The Telegraph

The Guardian

The Independent

Daily Mail

IN A NUTSHELL

GU: A classy revival, expertly staged by Richard Eyre… but, while it will give pleasure, the partnership of Kim Cattrall and Matthew Macfadyen as Amanda and Elyot never struck me as hatched in some ante-room of heaven.

TE: Richard Eyre’s terrific new production

TI: Thanks to him [Eyre] and his lead actors you can’t miss the play’s unassuming point and purpose.

ES: Noël Coward’s comedy calls for a mixture of turbulence and dry urbanity, and Richard Eyre’s finely calibrated production of Private Lives exhibits just the right blend of these qualities.

IN: Kim Cattrall and Matthew Macfadyen display an onstage chemistry that works like a volatile charm in Richard Eyre’s exhilaratingly funny revival of the Noel Coward comedy classic.

VA: The delights of flippancy are only intermittently on offer in Richard Eyre’s effortful revival. It’s not just the headline casting of Kim Cattrall as Amanda that overbalances this production.

DM: This is a gorgeous, glorious production of Private Lives, just bitchy enough to be modern, yet old-fashioned enough to have a three-part form.

ON KIM CATTRALL

IN: Right from the moment when Cattrall first appears on the hotel balcony clad only in a snowy white beach towel. With her tossed blonde curls and barbed flightiness, she’s a delight. …she’s got very good comic timing and demonstrates a winning flair for emotional slapstick.

GU: Cattrall, most famed for Sex and the City, is actually very good as Amanda… she brings out the inviolable selfhood that, for Coward, was a vital part of sexual attraction.

TE: Cattral is a vision to behold, at ease in her body, and miraculously combining vulnerability with sharp wit.

TI: At first I thought… [Cattrall] too free with the sort of fluttery vowels Marilyn Monroe might have have emitted were she attempting an English accent, [but] she combines allure with the mulishness of a woman who knows her own mind as well as her own body.

ES: Cattrall conveys an arch playfulness and a good deal of flighty yet vulnerable glamour. There’s warmth, too, albeit perhaps not quite enough of it.

VA: Cattrall is as elegant and feline as could be hoped for…  But it requires too much effort for Cattrall to iron out her North American inflections and accent, making her voice — and thus her performance — high-pitched and, on occasion, forced.

DM: Actress Kim Cattrall almost completely sheds her identity as ‘that vamp from TV’s Sex And The City’… she produces a not quite faultless English accent. A few words such as ‘one’, ‘afterwards’, ‘going’ and ‘worry’ require attention, but as Elyot says in one of the play’s many memorable lines, ‘don’t quibble, Sibyl’.

ON MATTHEW MACFAYDEN

IN: Macfadyen is all the funnier for being so meatily masculine and solid a presence, with an accent that seems to mock its own port-wine plumminess in a manner that reminded me, at times, of Michael Gambon.

GU: There is a sanity about Macfadyen which doesn’t quite square with Elyot’s espousal of flippancy as a way of life.

TE: Matthew Macfadyen has more than a touch of the brutish bully about him.

TI: At first I thought him too aloof, even a bit sullen and stolid… But his wit has bite

ES: In the key roles, Kim Cattrall and Matthew Macfadyen have what might blithely be termed chemistry — though in fact it’s closer to particle physics, all energetic collisions and strong nuclear force.

DM: Mr Macfadyen resists any temptation to speak in a classic clipped Cowardese. He makes sense of the lines by using the sort of pouty tone of entitlement too often heard from today’s gilded 30-somethings.

VA: Macfadyen is an unusually weighty Elyot. But his unexpectedly baleful quality initially slows down the play’s pulse. He too warms up as the play progresses, but his rhythm only rarely seems in synch with Cattrall’s.

IN SUMMARY

IN: Eyre’s splendid production alerts you anew to the fact that Private Lives is a dazzling feat of airborne comic dramaturgy.

GU: It is a clever, funny production that certainly hits the spot. Only the nagging perfectionist in me makes me feel there is even more to Amanda and Elyot… they never quite acquire the halo of specialness that for Coward was the justification for living.

TE: This production never quite attains the bruising passion that Lindsay Duncan and Alan Rickman brought to the play a few years ago, but it comes close.

ES: Although it begins on an unexpectedly passive note, this is a satisfying and intelligently conceived production. It’s fluent, very funny and at times dazzlingly well-acted.

VA: The play only truly comes to life in the scenes of physical comedy… Cattrall’s presence may pull crowds, but compared with past couplings as blissful as Abigail Thaw and Simon Robson, or Lindsay Duncan and Alan Rickman, these two are simply working too hard.

KEY TO REVIEWS:

ES: Evening Standard – Henry Hitchings

TI: The Times – Benedict Nightingale

TE: The Telegraph – Charles Spencer

GU: The Guardian – Michael Billington

IN: The Independent – Paul Taylor

DM: Daily Mail – Quentin Letts

VA: Variety – David Benedict

Book tickets to see Private Lives at the Vaudeville Theatre in London

Private Lives starring Kim Cattrall

SPECIAL OFFER: Save £10 on tickets to see Noel Coward’s Private Lives starring Kim Cattrall and Matthew Macfadyen at the Vaudeville Theatre in London.

Offer valid until 11th March

Noel Coward’s dazzling comic masterpiece returns to the West End in a brand new production starring Kim Cattrall (Sex and the City) and Matthew Macfadyen. Richard Eyre is to direct the new production at the Vaudeville Theatre in London

Coward’s comedy of manners finds Cattrall and Macfadyen playing former spouses who have been divorced from each other for five years. When fate finds them both honeymooning in the South of France in adjoining hotel rooms, their insatiable emotions are rekindled and they dive headlong into love and lust without a care for scandal, new partners or memories of why their marriage failed in the first place.

Cattrall, who famously plays Samantha in hit US show Sex And The City, last appeared on the London stage in 2006 when she starred in The Cryptogram at the Donmar Warehouse. She will also star in upcoming Roman Polanski thriller The Ghost.

Matthew Macfadyen played Mr Darcy in the 2005 film adaptation of Pride And Prejudice, opposite Keira Knightley, and other credits include hit spy drama Spooks, Little Dorrit and the upcoming Ridley Scott-directed film Robin Hood, in which he plays the Sheriff of Nottingham.

The play also stars Simon Paisley Day as Victor, who appeared in Entertaining Mr Sloane at Trafalgar Studios in January this year and previously in Timon Of Athens at Shakespeare’s Globe and The 39 Steps at the Criterion theatre. And Lisa Dillon as Sybil, who was most recently seen at the Almeida theatre in When The Rain Stops Falling, while her previous West End credits include Under The Blue Sky and The Master Builder. TV credits include BBC drama Cranford, Bright Young Things and Cambridge Spies.

SPECIAL OFFER: Save £10 on tickets to see Noel Coward’s Private Lives starring Kim Cattrall and Matthew Macfadyen at the Vaudeville Theatre in London.

Offer valid until 11th March

Broadway News: 9 to 5, Spider-Man and more

9 to 5 The Musical

We await the opening of Dolly Parton’s new musical 9 to 5 with more than a little excitement. Scheduled to start previews on 24 March at the Marquis Theatre on Broadway, the reviews for its pre-Broadway LA outing at the Ahmanson Theatre weren’t overly glowing but we still think this is going to be a big crowd-pleaser. And with Allison Janney (The West Wing) starring as Violet – the role created by Lily Tomlin in the hit movie, plus all the songs penned by Dolly, we can’t see how this could go wrong.

33 Variations

Jane Fonda starred in the original movie version of 9 to 5 but obviously could not be tempted to resurrect her role in the Broadway show – opting instead for new play 33 Variations by Moisés Kaufman – which is now in previews at the Eugene O’Neill Theater (replacing recently closed Spring Awakening), with the opening night on the 9 March. The play revolves around a mother (Fonda) coming to terms with her daughter against a composer coming to terms with his genius – all separated by 200 years. Also starring is Colin Hanks – Tom Hanks’ oldest son.

Spider-Man – the musical

Is Spider-Man about to come to the rescue of Broadway?It seems so, as next year will see a major new musical featuring the comic book superhero, directed by Julie Taymor (The Lion King).The infamous Marvel Comics creation will feature in Spider-Man: Turn off the Dark which is being penned by Taymor and playwright Glen Berger with music by Bono and The Edge from U2.

It promises designs and theatrical set pieces never seen before on stage and if it succeeds on Broadway there is sure to be a West End transfer for the show.The show will feature choreography by Daniel Ezralow, scenic designs by George Tsypin (The Little Mermaid), and costume designer Eiko Ishioka (Bram Stoker’s Dracula).

We await casting news with baited breath. Also slated for next year is a new take on TV and movie hit The Addams Family. It seems likely that the trend for seeing movies on stage is only going to increase as the recession continues to hit Broadway.

Blithe Spirit

Starting previews tomorrow is Blithe Spirit, Noël Coward’s classic comedy at the Shubert Theater on Broadway. Our very own Rupert Everett heads the cast as a successful novelist haunted by his biggest fan — his deceased first wife. Angela Lansbury also stars as the inimitable Madam Arcati. Directed by Michael Blakemore.

BOOK TICKETS TO LONDON THEATRE at westendtheatre.com

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