Earlier this week, Oscar and Tony winner Joel Grey, now 82, came out officially as gay. And in today’s Observer, Richard Wilson, aged 78, tells The Observer about his own public coming out two years ago: “I was officially “outed” by Time Out a couple of years ago.
Farewell to Geraldine McEwan
Into the 90s, she was stunning in Ionesco’s The Chairs at the Royal Court, opposite the late Richard Briers, and from where they transferred to reprise it on Broadway. That was a project she’d initiated herself, telling Playbill’s Harry Haun when it transferred to New York in 1998: “I was reading plays, as one does, and I thought, ‘Oh, I’ll have a look at Ionesco, but I should think it’s old hat.
ENO’s executive director now departs
Today also came the news that Henrietta Götz, executive director of English National Opera, has followed the exit of chairman Martyn Rose, after less than a year in the role.
Hello/goodbye to Hello/Goodbye?
Today Lyn Gardner delivered one of her blistering one-star pans for Hello/Goodbye at Hampstead Theatre, which has newly transferred this week to the mainhouse after its earlier premiere downstairs in 2013. Dubbing it an “inoffensive but entirely pointless two-hour romcom”, she went on to say that Shaun Evans and Miranda Raison “have all the allure of two slightly defrosted chicken nuggets.
Offstage drama at English National Opera
o now we know the real reason for the recent departure of English National Opera’s chairman Martyn Rose. In a (previously private) letter that he sent to ENO’s President and whose contents have now been revealed by the Sunday Times today, Rose expressed strong doubts about artistic director John Berry’s leadership of the company.
The Last Ship: F*ck The Bishop!
Sting’s The Last Ship closed on Broadway last night, after a disappointing run of just over 100 performances since it opened on October 26. At the final performance, he gave a moving curtain speech in which he said: ’Before we take our final bow, I feel it’s incumbent on me to say something. I’m not sure I’ll get through it without breaking down. I need to be a better actor, but I will try. There’s no point in pretending [this] is not incredibly emotional. I think I can speak for all of us onstage, not least because there are so many parallels between the closing of a play and the closing of a shipyard. Some of the lines that we were saying as actors are so appropriate to our lives, just as they’re appropriate to the lives of the shipyard workers fighting for their livelihood.
A Pair Of New Assassins At The Menier
Sting’s The Last Ship closed on Broadway last night, after a disappointing run of just over 100 performances since it opened on October 26. At the final performance, he gave a moving curtain speech in which he said: ’Before we take our final bow, I feel it’s incumbent on me to say something. I’m not sure I’ll get through it without breaking down. I need to be a better actor, but I will try. There’s no point in pretending [this] is not incredibly emotional. I think I can speak for all of us onstage, not least because there are so many parallels between the closing of a play and the closing of a shipyard. Some of the lines that we were saying as actors are so appropriate to our lives, just as they’re appropriate to the lives of the shipyard workers fighting for their livelihood.
Thriller Live’s 7th Year
When Thriller Live arrived at the Lyric on Shaftesbury Avenue exactly six years ago today, I thought it felt very much like a filler that would be there for a few months but then move on. Instead, of course, it was Michael Jackson who moved on himself to the great pop arena in the sky, and the show became a sort of living memorial to him. In the days following his death, the theatre became a shrine with fans coming there to post tributes. (There’s now a permanent one in the foyer).
A New Broom At The National Theatre
After last year’s most eagerly anticipated announcement of who would take over from Nick Hytner as artistic director, today has been the day for the year’s most eagerly anticipated announcement of Rufus Norris’s first season at the helm.