The Stage

Chit chat: Friel forces Spencer into a critical condition

Published Tuesday 6 October 2009 at 10:35 by Tabard

Tabard was amused to see The Daily Telegraph’s lead theatre critic (and Stage alumnus) Charles Spencer getting a bit of a friendly ribbing in The Guardian’s Media Monkey this week.

“Phwoar!,” exclaims the Monkey, “The Daily Telegraph’s theatre critic Charles Spencer has come over all hot and bothered again, 11 years after he described Nicole Kidman’s performance in The Blue Room as “pure theatrical Viagra”. This time the object of his attention is Anna Friel in the new West End production of Breakfast at Tiffany’s. “With her tousled hair, frank sensuality and a script that requires her to spend long stretches of the action in her underwear and, in once [sic] scene, nothing at all, Friel creates a thrilling frisson of eroticism.” The misspelling was presumably the moment when the memory became too much. By the end, wrote Spencer, he had been moved to tears. Friel had put her clothes back on, presumably.”

Spencer will, we are sure, be pleased to hear that some pictures of Friel, onstage dressed in only her birthday suit, have since somehow found their way to the News of the World - seemingly taken by a punter on their mobile phone.

So, hopefully, with that aide memoire, he’ll now be able to wipe away his tears. Tissue?