It seemed fitting that the Peter Brook fest currently underway at the Barbican should be heralded by The Stage’s New Year party on Friday afternoon, a raucous assembly of the usual suspects and the fresh face of tomorrow’s theatre.

I was astonished to learn that Brook had never visited Wilton’s Music Hall, the obvious London counterpart to his Paris base at the Bouffes du Nord; so Rosie Mayhew, one of three sisters running Wilton’s, will be getting in touch.

Rosie was working the room — the Grand Salon in the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane — and scarcely broke her stride when invited by comedian Arthur Smith to partake of an intimate conversation in one of the royal boxes.

Instead, she joined me in more high flown intercourse mode with Waiting for Godot director Sean Mathias and actors Amanda Drew and Sam West now revelling in their success with Enron.

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Over 150 Whatsonstage.com theatregoers descended upon the Garrick Theatre last night to attend Jamie Lloyd’s production of The Little Dog Laughed. Douglas Carter Beane’s play has opened to an array of mixed reviews, though the audience on this particular night certainly seemed to leave satisfied.

The play offers commentary on the superficial world of American show business. Rupert Friend portrays up-and-coming movie star Mitchell, a charismatic, yet confused young actor whose aspirations to rise to the forefront of the industry are slightly thrown off course by an inner suspicion, and later admittance, of homosexuality. The audience quickly learns that our protagonist is in fact, gay; something which he intends to keep hidden from the public’s knowledge as per the request of his brazen and ruthless lesbian super-agent Diane (Tamsin Greig). The stage belonged to Greig on this night, whose performance captivated the audience with stimulating comedic interaction and passionate rants. Read the rest of this entry »

My day was made when, on my way to catch a matinee of the RSC’s Twelfth Night at the Duke of York’s, a call came through announcing that the long wait was over.

Summer will be joyful again when Hot Ice returns for an eight week season at the Blackpool Pleasure Beach on 14 July.

I have long been an aficionado of the Blackpool ice dance show, the best in Europe, and it was touching to think of Amanda Thompson, Pleasure Beach supremo, making sure that I was the first to hear the news.

My mood lightened, my step quickened and I even felt positive about seeing Richard Wilson as Malvolio.

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For a show that is allegedly such a slam dunk box office hit, Legally Blonde’s display advertising campaign in the newspapers has an odd air of desperation about it.

And I was further surprised to see in yesterday’s Evening Standard that Whatsonstage.com’s over generous three star rating had been upgraded to four stars.

I’m sure this is an error that will be immediately rectified. But it looks bad.

And I’d hate to see producer Sonia Friedman faced with the concerted wrath of the fearsome Critics Circle backed up by legislation at the European Court of Human Rights.

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Something extraordinary happened in Southend on Friday night.

East 15 Acting School opened a new plant and 250 trainee actors occupied a former church in a massive theatre event about asylum, immigration and identity.

Former RSC, Bristol Old Vic and Abbey Theatre director Leon Rubin, now the artistic director of East 15, with associate Michael Fry, galvanised the entire school and technical staff in the event and even arranged, with their partners at the University of Essex, a discussion curtain-raiser with a guest appearance by honorary graduate Juliet Stevenson.

Juliet stayed on for the show, too, as did veteran academic and former National Theatre associate John Russell Brown, the Mayor of Southend, the Vice-Chancellor of the University and other bigwigs, proud parents and East 15 supporters.

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Simon Callow wrote a fine article in the Evening Standard the other day complaining about the difficulties of getting about London on the tubes when half the service is shut down half the time, notably at weekends.

As far as I could make out from the annoying announcements last night, six tube lines will be out of operation this weekend. It’s as though going to the theatre has now been made into an obstacle course. And the tourists can go hang.

On Monday, three critics — Julie Carpenter of the Express, Matt Wolf of the International Herald Tribune and me — lurched out of Belsize Park tube station at midnight, utterly exhausted from the journey home.

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Jez Butterworth, accepting the best play prize at the Critics Circle Theatre Awards for Jerusalem, was relieved to discover that we had a circle in the first place.

Now he envisaged us sitting there, writing all our reviews together, and not having to go off separately to live with our mums.

This moment of revelation was as piercing as some of Arthur Smith’s jokes, notably the one about the doctor telling the man with a lettuce stuck in his fundament that it was only the tip of the iceberg.
 
And it made up for one or two of the more embarrassing moments, such as a bossy American guest’s heckling of the chief sponsor when the poor man, confined to a wheelchair, was failing to speak into the microphone.

Or when Benedict Nightingale took to the stage, having announced his retirement at the end of May, and one or two of his colleagues leapt to their feet in a standing ovation that nobody else felt like joining in.

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Even by normal standards of unlikely theatre destinations, my swing between Claremont High School in Harrow for an RSC Hamlet and Hoxton Hall in Shoreditch for the 2010 London Improvathon on Friday was something of a surprise stretch.

In the morning, the RSC gave a Press opening to their touring Hamlet in the school gym to an audience of remarkably attentive eleven and twelve year-olds.

The play was zipped through in seventy minutes — no Fortinbras, no Gravediggers, no problem — and Dharmesh Patel was a lively, freaked-out prince.

The RSC sets great store by its “learning” policy, as indicated by the presence among the kids and critics of chairman Christopher Bland, artistic director Michael Boyd and other big wigs.

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There was an interesting convocation of non Press people in the Press bar at The Little Dog Laughed last night: Angus Deayton,  Mamma Mia! producer Judy Craymer and film publicist Jonathan Rutter.

Which made a nice change from the rest of us cramped together in disharmony and fighting for the freebies. By the time one reached the cubby hole dispensing the grog, it was time to go back for the second act.

At least this pleasant crush didn’t lead to the sort of pantomime fracas involving the aptly named Amy Winehouse over the holiday season when she pulled the hair of a theatre manager who wouldn’t top her up with vodka and coke.

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The superb revival of The Caretaker starring Jonathan Pryce at the Trafalgar Studios is nearly ruined by the interval.

It’s in the wrong place, half way through the second act, destroying the shape and rhythm of the play, and very nearly Pryce’s performance, entirely.

I can see the problem. The horrid Trafalgar Studios main auditorium is such a nightmare for acccess — and there’s no helpful ushering — that two intervals would probably keep the customers banged up for three and a half hours.

In which case, the management should take the interval after the second act, or not at all.

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