Welcome to today’s edition of ShentonSTAGE Daily, in which I look back on last week’s news and reviews (including my own).
FRIDAY JANUARY 20
Woe betide the play that gets a warm welcome out of town — then comes into London to face a critical drubbing. But that’s what seems to have happened with some critics for Steve Moffatt’s debut play THE UNFRIEND, premiered at Chichester’s Minerva last summer, and which transferred to the West End’s Criterion Theatre last night.
It lost a star from The Stage, who gave it four at Chichester, but only three at the Criterion, from a different critic; meanwhile, Fiona Mounford for the I and Andzrej Lukowski for Time Out both gave just two stars.
(It wasn’t all bad news: the Telegraph’s Dominic Cavendish, the Evening Standard’s Nick Curtis and WhatsOnStage’s Sarah Crompton each came in with four star reviews.)
But one of the play’s three stars Amanda Abbington isn’t against picking a fight with Mountford, tweeting
That’s a bit weird, since Fiona actually ends her review by stating, “I have seen this play twice now and all I can say is please don’t make me watch it again.” So Abbington’s invitation is hardly likely to be taken up. But more weirdly, why on earth should Fiona care about how “nerve wracking and difficult it is doing a play”? Critics are there to review the result, as it seems to them, not the effort.
Lukowski, meanwhile, makes the point:
As another Twitter account The Quinntessential Review
@The_Q_R points out:
SATURDAY JANUARY 21
Reports that the recent Off-Broadway revival of Ahrens and Flaherty’s A Man of No Importance, produced by Classic Stage Company with a cast led by Jim Parsons (pictured below right, with A.J. Shivley), is to transfer to the Circle in the Square in late March, bringing the number of musical revivals planned for this season to seven. (I saw John Doyle’s production at CSC, and reviewed it here)
Two have already come and gone: Into the Woods and 1776 (the former is about to embark on a US national tour now). The others are yet to open. Parade is transferring from City Center (where I saw and loved it); the others are all new productions, namely revivals of Sweeney Todd, Camelot and Dancin’. This is the most musical revivals for over a decade; previous years with multiple revivals were six in each of 2010 and 2012, and five in 2016.
SUNDAY JANUARY 22
Regular Twitter followers of mine will have seen my retweets before for actor and photographer Kieran Brown’s work as the latter. Last week he was in New York, making his New York cabaret debut as one of the Barricade Boys at 54 Below, the performance troupe made up of former cast members of Les Miserables; and he took some absolutely stunning shots of my favourite city on the planet.
He tweeted that this one may be his favourite shot ever:
I also love this one:
They remind me a bit of one of the favourite artists of my husband and I, Paul Kenton, who regularly paints contemporary New York landscapes, like the one below of Times Square; we even own an original of his of Grand Central Station.
MONDAY JANUARY 23
I am being inundated with press releases and pleas to cover events in this year’s Vault Festival that runs from tomorrow (January 24) to March 19.
Given how much there is already to cover elsewhere, and the short runs most of the shows there have, make it difficult to prioritise it; plus I no longer live in London, so it’s not quite so easy as before to actually get to them. But mostly, if there’s a venue I despise more than The Vaults in London I’m luckily yet to find it. Others may find its dingy underworld vibe edgy; I find it simply unsavoury.
So excuse me if I sit this one out; I’ll let others do the legwork, and, as with Edinburgh, hope that the best work seen there transfers elsewhere so I can see it then.
TUESDAY JANUARY 24
An embargoed release arrives announcing the expected West End transfer for the Almeida’s A Streetcar Named Desire on the same day that its star Paul Mescal is nominated for an Oscar for Best Actor for Aftersun; the embargo is till midnight tonight. Mainly to protect the exclusive given to Baz Bamigboye on Deadline, where ATG producer Adam Speers predicts, “the energy inside the Phoenix Theatre will be like the biggest rock band in the world have come back together for one last gig.”
This is going to be a sure-fire hot ticket. And such a curtailed run — less than half the typical West End run (14 weeks) for a star-led play — will push it into premium territory. Already the price range is being advertised as up to £125; but that will surely be quickly exceeded.
It follows an eight week only run for Noises Off (see Wednesday below), and is part of a wider trend for shows to only offer West End showcases, not full runs. Also just announced: Rose (28 performances) at the Ambassadors, following in the footsteps there of My Son’s A Queer (86 performances, opening officially next Wednesday, though I’m going tonight), and Vardy v Rooney: The Wagatha Christie Trial (58 performances), all of them transfers after earlier runs elsewhere.
WEDNESDAY JANUARY 25
Michael Frayn’s Noises Off, originally premiered at Lyric Hammersmith all of forty years ago in 1982, before transferring to the Savoy for a five-year run, has become a West End staple. There have been revivals at the National in 2000 (transferring to the Piccadilly, and subsequently also being re-staged on Broadway) and Old Vic in 2011 (transferring to the Novello).
There was also a second Broadway revival in 2015, while it was last seen in the West End in 2019 at the Garrick when Jeremy Herrin’s revival at its original home the Lyric Hammersmith transferred.
Though the age of ropey stage sex farces has all but passed, this is a still-riotously funny play, a brilliantly choreographed exercise in minutely planned theatrical chaos as we watch a touring production disintegrate in front of our own eyes.
It is stunningly executed by an all-star cast of West End stalwarts, including Felicity Kendall (below centre), Tracey-Ann Oberman and Matthew Kelly (below right), all in fine form.
But the show is virtually stolen — and made — by the virtuosic physical comedy of Joseph Millson (pictured above left) whose sheer agility matches his utter charm. This is the funniest performance on the West End stage.
THURSDAY JANUARY 26
Ding, dong, the bells are going to chime!
When Bartlett Sher’s revival of Lerner and Loewe warhorse My Fair Lady first opened at Lincoln Center in 2018, it was my favourite production of that year on Broadway. I went three times, seeing Lauren Ambrose twice and then Laura Benanti as Eliza Doolittle, opposite Harry Hadden-Paton as Higgins. The latter reprised the role when it transferred, post-Covid, to the London Coliseum in 2022, and I saw it twice more.
That production is now on a UK tour, where I saw it again today in the big old barn of Southampton’s Mayflower Theatre, now with Michael Xavier as a really definitive Henry Higgins. Not only for once do we have a Higgins who can really sing — even if Rex Harrison who created the role in the original production could only speak-sang — but he also properly acts it, combining an effortlessly insouciant patrician charm with the character’s bullying, uncomprehending sense of utterly unlikeable entitlement.
One of Xavier’s first West End appearances, in 2003, was when he played the lovestruck Freddie Eynsford-HIll in Trevor Nunn’s production of the show at Drury Lane; it’s so lovely to have been able to watch him grow over the years in stature and status from juve lead to formidable leading man. (It’s a similar progression we observe as former Marius’s, from Michael Ball to Jon Robyns, have done to playing Valjean in Les Miserables).
He is gloriously (mis)matched with Charlotte Kennedy’s radiant voiced Eliza, who puts up a spirited defence of her own agency; a glorious company also includes the luxury casting of Lesley Garrett as Mrs Pearce, an essentially non-singing character role).
SHOWS AHEAD IN LONDON, SELECTED REGIONAL THEATRES AND ON BROADWAY
My regularly updated feature on shows in London, selected regional theatres and on Broadway is here: https://shentonstage.com/theatre-openings-from-w-c-january-23/
See you here on Monday
I will be back on Monday. If you can’t wait that long, I may also be found on Twitter (for the moment) here: https://twitter.com/ShentonStage/ (though not as regularly on weekends)