Columns
In performance terms, the centrepiece of this year’s Norfolk and Norwich Festival is the presentation of all five episodes of Nature Theater of Oklahoma’s epic Life and Times project but the cross-cultural festival also marks the final date for…
ATG plants a flag on Broadway
ATG’s Howard Panter and Rosemary Squire have topped The Stage 100 list of theatreland’s most influential people for four years running now (though this year they shared the top spot with the National Theatre). And…
ATG, Brits on Broadway and an advert for subsidy
Ambassador Theatre Group’s increasing dominance of the UK industry can be a divisive subject in theatre circles, but news this week that the group has made its first big strides into the US market should be…
Dancing inside the box
I don’t usually get that excited about dance on the small screen. I find watching full-length classical ballets on the tellybox can often be really irritating – the close camera angles showing all the sweat…
Is Eddie Izzard still a Force Majeure?
When Eddie Izzard toured ‘Sexie’ in 2003/4, critic Clive Davis wrote in The Times: “Too much of this show [though] had a second-hand air to it, the fans valiantly ignoring the fact that many of…
What does it take to be an agent’s assistant?
Today was a big day in my office – I had a brand new assistant starting, for the first time in half a decade. In the past, the position has been such luminaries as Gary…
More notes from New York: from a musical about Imelda Marcos to a one-man Macbeth from Scotland
I’ve already reported on part of my New York week last week, when I wrote about seeing Once yet again there and Orphans (which shut on Sunday) and Old Hats (which on Sunday won this…
Leicester’s learning Curve
The positivity there is among young people for the arts and their potential seems to be in inverse proportion to the value put on the young people themselves by government. Secretary of state Maria Miller…
Good news all round
Three pieces of training-related good news to share today. First, Cygnet Training Theatre in Exeter which was a member, albeit the smallest and the most “different”, of the old Conference of Drama Schools. When Drama…
The week ahead in London, May 20-26
No sooner have I returned from New York late last night, after a madcap whirl of 8 shows in five days, there’s a crazy week ahead in London with multiple openings on the same nights,…
Short Shorts 85: An actor bites back and clowning around
I’m in New York this week, and though I wasn’t here in time to see The Testament of Mary that closed the weekend before last with Fiona Shaw, I just made it into town in…
Hemley’s BAFTA etiquette – a guide for Sheridan Smith and others
The red carpet has been rolled away for another year, and the winners of last weekend’s BAFTAs will now be wondering where to place their trophies. In Olivia Colman’s case, she will be wondering what…
Should student shows be marketed better to the public?
The Director of Performance at Mountview, Stephen Jamieson, told me last week that it isn’t always easy to persuade the general public to come to student shows. “They don’t seem to know that they can simply…
Crowd funding on the Fringe
Is it ok to ask friends and fans to fund your art? In the wake of criticism unleashed upon Zach Braff for financing his new film through Kickstarter it seems that for the very rich…
Once is definitely not enough
I try not to be what a friend of mine in New York calls a “quotes whore” – someone who writes reviews so that they get emblazoned on the marquees outside theatres. But I also…
The drama school bubble
There is a familiar sight in zombie films: ruthless, inhuman creatures scrambling to feed on destruction, a mindless follower mentality drawn by the promise of brains/food/life. Let’s relocate that image, make the carnage less visible…
When the drearies do attack/ and a siege of the sads begins…
I guess we just have to get used to it: life can frequently be depressing. But I never get used to suffering from depression, which is a different (though sometimes related) thing entirely. Just the…
Choreography to make you Scarlett with envy
The Royal Ballet’s Artist in Residence, Liam Scarlett is yet again a hot topic around town. His first full-length narrative ballet received mixed reviews during its four day run at the Linbury Studio Theatre at…
Show about DJ scandal could be hit and miss
It was only going to be a matter of time before the Jimmy Savile scandal made its way to the stage in some shape or form. But where would such a show find a home…
The (mis)information highway and the online haters
It’s a fact of life that there’s now an unstoppable tide of information (and in turn misinformation) about, thanks to Twitter and the speed at which it can disseminate information. I am implicated and complicit…
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