Up In The Gods Of Middle Earth
Blimey, old Gandalf’s agent drew the short straw last night at Drury Lane. Dallas Smith of Peters Fraser and Dunlop, who represents RSC stalwart Malcolm Storry, was banished to the gods, the top layer of Middle Earth — ie the cheap seats in the gallery — along with all other leading agents for the Lord of the Rings cast.
This was to make way, presumably, for such household names in the stalls as comedienne Faith Brown (who wore a dress slit up the side to her throat — and why stop slitting there, I wonder?), Arlene Phillips (who easily won best dress of the night award), Howard Davies hugger-mugging with Kevin Spacey, Blanche Marvin, Ruth Leon and many others whose names escape me; we didn’t even have the benefit of Biggins.
Mind you, it could have been worse for Dallas. He might have got stuck behind Brian May’s hair. Judi Dench gave me her usual frosty greeting — I’ve never been forgiven for being rude in a review of her daughter Finty — but her consort for the night, Richard Eyre, was the soul of merriment and discretion, as usual. I was beginning to enjoy the pre-show and interval a lot more than the performance itself.
I needed to enjoy something as I tore a muscle in my arm playing tennis in the morning, had no luck at all with my cryptic crossword on the bus journey into Covent Garden; where I was promptly drenched in a heavy shower and berated on all sides for sending Georgina Brown’s take-out coffee flying across the pavement. Frodo’s quest of ring renunciation seemed like a doddle after all this.
Into the woods one night with Sondheim and again with the hobbits. I know which trip I preferred: the one with style, wit and jaunty, harmonic musical composition as well as clarity and cleverness of narrative writing. One thing, though: why does the Royal Opera House continue to flirt with Sondheim while cold-shouldering Lloyd Webber?
Now that even Nicholas Kenyon, the new Barbican supremo, has belatedly declared (as he programmes him in the Proms in the Michael Ball recital) that Lloyd Webber is as much a genius in his way as Beethoven was in his, why doesn’t ROH2 take a look in the Linbury at such under-appreciated Lloyd Webber scores as Aspects of Love and The Beautiful Game?