Welcome to today’s edition of ShentonSTAGE Daily, which I’m actually publishing late on Sunday afternoon for a change.
“I USED TO BE SOMEBODY” (Yes, me, too!)
All careers have their ebbs and flows. “Top billing one day, Next day you’re touring in stock,” sings Carlotta Campion in Sondheim and Goldman’s 1971 musical masterpiece FOLLIES. But those dizzying changes in professional status don’t just happen to actors; they also happen to those of us who write about them.
The unflinching honesty of Kevin Sessums — once a celebrity profiler for Vanity Fair in its Tina Brown-era heyday, who became a media star in his own right — gave me serious cause for self-reflection in his latest column last week. Published under the title I USED TO BE SOMEBODY, he chronicles how he has undergone a massive career change to now producing his own newsletter on Subsack platform SES/SUMS IT UP.
I’ve gotten to know him a little — mainly through his writing — but also in person since he now spends several months a year in London, fulfilling a long-held desire to do so. In the process, he has utterly streamlined his life — from living in Manhattan and upstate New York to a bedsit in London; but is now, it seems, much happier for it, too. (He’s pictured above with Alan Cumming, from his Instagram account).
I long ago realised some of my own dreams too — to become a national theatre critic, and to have a home in Manhattan. I am no longer the former and no longer have the latter.
But just as Kevin has become his true self in shedding the baggage of the past, through recovery and sobriety, I too have undergone a similar transformation, and for (some of) the same reasons. Not that I equate myself on his level, journalistically speaking. He reached the very top level of celebrity journalism; I only really reached the foothills.
But we’ve reached a similar place: we are both self-publishing our own newsletters now, as our primary creative outlets.
As he writes,
Nor did I suffer from the same demons as he did, though I had my own (in his case, developing a drink and drug dependency; in mine, on sex and bad relationships). But we both found our true selves — and a new way of living — in recovery, something he, like me, has also documented publicly, so I am not breaching his confidentiality in revealing it.
He ended his piece last week saying this:
That perfectly articulates why I, too, am doing what I do now. Thank you, Kevin, for making me realise where I am in my own life.
SOCIAL MEDIA BATTLES
We all know just how utterly toxic social media can be, and what a mistake it is to measure one’s worth or standing by what people say about you there — or how many followers you have.
I was reminded of this last week when I received an unsolicited Direct Message on Twitter from someone I don’t actually know:
Q
Quite apart from wondering why on earth he still follows me in that case, it’s rather incredible that he asks me to be kind — while being so remarkably unkind myself. But be that as it may — I’ve always said that, given that critics give it, we need to be able to take it as well. (Though I probably need to shut my twitter account to unsolicited messages from people I don’t know).
I wrote here last week that not everyone is content to sit back and take criticism anymore; Amanda Abbington publicly tweeted critic Fiona Mountford after she gave a negative review to THE UNFRIEND that Abbington is currently starring in. After I published this column, I received a direct message from Abbington herself, defending her tweet; since it was sent directly to me, I won’t tweet its contents, but this is my reply:
“Thanks for clarifying. But though actors of course have the right of reply, it doesn’t usually end well. I loved the play at Chichester, and am looking forward to seeing it again myself.”
I am going to do so tomorrow, in fact. I will report here on Friday.
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-30/
This week sees a West End opening for an Edinburgh fringe play from a few years back, now suitably embellished by the presence of stars Aidan Turner and Jenna Coleman (LEMONS LEMONS LEMONS LEMONS LEMONS, at the Pinter on Tuesday), and a return run for 2:22 A GHOST STORY, now at its 4th West End address (the Lyric on Shaftesbury Avenue), and with Cheryl (as she’s simply known) making her stage acting debut (there’s a press night on Wednesday, but owing to the train strike that day, I will be going the next evening). Also returning to the West End this week is Rob Madge’s solo show MY SON’S A QUEER (this time to the Ambassadors, opening Wednesday; but again because of the train strike, I’ve actually already been; I went to see it on Friday). Reports to follow on Friday.
See you here on Friday
I will be back on Friday. 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)