The Prisoner of Second Avenue
July 29, 2010 by admin
Filed under Matinee Days, New Shows, Shows
Prisoner of Second Avenue – Save £9
A new production of Neil Simon’s 1971 comedy The Prisoner of Second Avenue is the first West End project for Kevin Spacey’s Old Vic Theatre. The bitter-sweet comedy stars Hollywood actors Jeff Goldblum (Tall Guy) and Mercedes Ruehl (The Fisher King) for a limited season at the Vaudeville Theatre.
In the show Goldblum stars as Mel Edison, a man at breaking point. In the heat of a New York City summer his air-conditioning has broken, his neighbours won’t shut-up, his job is hanging by a thread and there are a gang of burglars on the prowl.
Terry Johnson, flush from his Tony success for La Cage Aux Folles on Broadway, directs the show.
Book tickets to The Prisoner of Second Avenue at the Vaudeville Theatre in London
The Prisoner of Second Avenue – Reviews Round-up
July 15, 2010 by admin
Filed under Reviews Round-up
The Old Vic’s first adventure north of the river under the stewardship of Kevin Spacey has not been a critical smash, but pleased the critics sufficiently to be a respectable launch pad for further projects.
The show’s performances, notably the two leads Jeff Goldblum and Mercedes Ruehl, and direction fared better with the critics than Neil Simon’s play.
The Prisoner of Second Avenue at the Vaudeville Theatre is a revival of Neil Simon’s 1971 comedy starring In the show Goldblum stars as Mel Edison, a man at breaking point. In the heat of a New York City summer his air-conditioning has broken, his neighbours won’t shut-up, his job is hanging by a thread and there are a gang of burglars on the prowl.
Terry Johnson, flush from his Tony success for La Cage Aux Folles on Broadway, has directed the show.
Book tickets to The Prisoner of Second Avenue at the Vaudeville Theatre in London
Summer Theatre in the West End
June 28, 2010 by admin
Filed under Features, Features - Featured, News, Shows opening
New shows opening in London this summer
Spring and autumn may be the busiest times for new shows in London, but this summer will still pack quite a punch with some big names, high-profile directors and a few surprises in store.
A range of musicals and plays will open in the capital over the next few months, including classic musicals from Stephen Sondheim (Into the Woods) and Rogers & Hammerstein (State Fair); starry comedy, including David Hyde Pearce and Joanna Lumley in La Bete, Jeff Goldblum in The Prisoner of Second Avenue and Simon Russell Beal and Jonathan Groff in Deathtrap); dance spectaculars (Burn the Floor), new musicals (Wolfboy), ambitious children’s drama (The Railway Children) and a terrifying new play (Ghost Stories).
JEFF GOLDBLUM in The Prisoner of Second Avenue
June 22, 2010 by admin
Filed under People To Watch, Star Watch, Star Watch - Big names in town
Kevin Spacey lures Jeff Goldblum back to town
Hollywood star Jeff Goldblum is back in London, following his sell-out success in Speed-the-Plow at the Old Vic.
This time Kavin Spacey is making his first Old Vic venture in the West End, with an Old Vic-produced revival of Neil Simon’s comedy The Prisoner of Second Avenue at the Vaudeville Theatre from 30 June to 11 September.
In the show Goldblum stars as Mel Edison, a man at breaking point. In the heat of a New York City summer his air-conditioning has broken, his neighbours won’t shut-up, his job is hanging by a thread and there are a gang of burglars on the prowl.
The play is directed by Terry Johnson, flush from his Tony Award success for La Cage Aux Folles, and also stars Academy Award-winner Mercedes Ruehl.
Jeff Goldblum’s numerous film credits include The Fly, Jurassic Park, Independence Day and The Tall Guy. His Broadway credits include The Pillowman for which he won an Outer Critics’ Circle Award.
Book tickets to The Prisoner of Second Avenue at the Vaudeville Theatre in London.
MERCEDES RUEHL in The Prisoner of Second Avenue
June 1, 2010 by admin
Filed under People To Watch, Star Watch, Star Watch - Big names in town
American film and stage star to play Neil Simon comedy
Film and stage star Mercedes Ruehl will appear in the Old Vic in the West End’s new production of Neil Simon’s comedy The Prisoner of Second Avenue, at the Vaudeville Theatre from 30 June to 11 September.
In the show Ruehl stars as loyal wife Edna, who has to pick up the pieces when her husband, Mel, has a New York meltdown.
The play is directed by Terry Johnson, flush from his Tony Award success for La Cage Aux Folles, and also stars Hollywood’s Jeff Goldblum as Mel.
Mercedes Ruehl won an Oscar for her performance in The Fisher King and multiple awards including a Tony for her Broadway performance in Neil Simon’s Lost in Yonkers, alongside Old Vic Artistic Director Kevin Spacey.
Book tickets to The Prisoner of Second Avenue at the Vaudeville Theatre in London.
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
Book tickets to see Private Lives at the Vaudeville Theatre in London
Private Lives starring Kim Cattrall
December 12, 2009 by admin
Filed under Uncategorized
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.
Offer valid until 11th March
Little Voice casting: Diana Vickers & Marc Warren
The X-Factor runner-up DIANA VICKERS has been cast in a new production of THE RISE AND FALL OF LITTLE VOICE, to open at the Vaudeville Theatre in October.
Jim Cartwright’s Olivier Award-winning comedy will be directed by Terry Johnson and Diana Vickers will play the role originated by Jane Horrocks in both the 1992 stage version and the hit film, Little Voice.
The black comedy musical set in the North of England sees a shy girl perfect faultless impersonations of great divas, including Shirley Bassey and Judy Garland.
Also starring in the high-profile show are stage, TV and film stars Lesley Sharp (Bob and Rose, The Full Monty) as Mari and Marc Warren (Hustle, Mutual Friends) as Ray Say.
Producer Nica Burns said: “When Jim Cartwright told me he had found the perfect girl – and then dragged me off to Wembley to see [Diana Vickers] perform as part of the X Factor tour, I thought he’d gone mad! But when I saw Diana, I knew immediately he was right; she has a special quality. When she finally agreed – after much persuasion – to come in and read for us, we found out that not only can she sing but she was an intuitive actress as well.”
Diana Vickers entered The X Factor contest in 2008 and proved an instant success, and is currently recording her debut album.
Save £10 on tickets to see The Rise and Fall of Little Voice at the Vaudeville Theatre, London
Transfer News: Juliet Stevenson, Avenue Q, Prunella Scales and War Horse
March 17, 2009 by admin
Filed under News, Show transfers
It’s all change in the West End as a number of shows close to make way for transfers from other theatres. In an increasingly risk-averse climate for producers, a hit in a small venue or success in a limited run could mean money if it transfers into the West End. The subsidised National Theatre and Almeida are bringing in War Horse and Duet for One respectively, Cameron Mackintosh decides to keep Avenue Q running and Carrie’s War and Saturday Night transfer from smaller venues.
Duet For One
The Almeida’s recently acclaimed production Duet for One will transfer to the West End in May.
Tom Kempinski’s two-hander stars Juliet Stevenson and Henry Goodman and centres on a concert violinist (Stevenson) who goes to a psychiatrist (Goodman) in the wake of a tragedy.
Directed by Matthew Lloyd, it will transfer to the Vaudeville Theatre from 7th May.
Avenue Q
There’s nothing like the threat of missing out to boost a show. Avenue Q - which has already run for 3 years at the Noel Coward Theatre, had announced its closure to make way for Calendar Girls.
But a new demand for tickets to catch the show before it exits London has promoted Cameron Mackintosh to transfer it to another one of his theatres – this time the Gielgud. It will reside there from 1 June.
Avenue Q will replace Enjoy starring Alison Steadman and David Troughton.
SAVE £18.50 ON TICKETS TO SEE ENJOY
Carrie’s War
Heart-warming family drama Carrie’s War – about two young evacuees during the Second World War and based on the classic kid’s novel by Nina Bawden is transferring from Sadler’s Wells into the West End.
Much loved actress Prunella Scales stars in the play, which will begin on 18 June at the Apollo Theatre. The show also stars Sarah Edwardson, who reprises the role of Carrie, and Amanda Symonds and James Beddard.
Carrie’s War will replace Three Days of Rain at the Apollo, currently starring James McAvoy.
SAVE £16.50 ON TICKETS TO CARRIE’S WAR
SAVE £14 ON TICKETS TO THREE DAYS OF RAIN
War Horse
From World War II to the First World War – and the opening this month in the West End of the National Theatre’s critically smash-hit War Horse – galloping across the river from the National to the New London Theatre from next week – 28th March.
The award-winning adaptation of Michael Morpurgo’s novel, set during World War I,is directed by Marianne Elliott and Tom Morris, and is told using the puppetry of the South African Handspring Puppet Company – including life-size horses and a tank!
Sondheim’s Saturday Night
Stephen Sondheim’s first Broadway musical Saturday Night will at long last enjoy a West End premiere, despite being penned by Sondheim in the 1950s.
After selling out run the Jermyn Street Theatre, it will come to the Arts Theatre for a short run from 25 March. Set it New York just before the Wall Street crash of 1929, the show stars Helena Blackman, who was runner up in the BBC1 talent show “How Do You Solve a Problem like Maria?”
