My spies tell me that Jessie, Jodie, Sam and the lord himself were spotted at one of Liza Minnelli’s gigs in London last week. Anyone who saw JB and the Lord on Jonathan Ross last night will know why. Liza coaches the girls tonight, well not literally, but the via the V.T as it has already happened.

It got me thinking really, as I am lucky enough to be reviewing one of Liza’s gigs on Monday night in Manchester. One of the reasons why I love this singer is that you feel when she is on stage that she is getting rid of some inner demons; she completely loses herself in the moment, just like her late mother, Judy Garland. Sure, she’s not as good as she used to be, but she still brings emotion to a song by the bowler hatful.

Now, I know that I’d Do Anything is ultimately a reality tv show, but sometimes the contestants are criticised for having “nothing behind the eyes”, “lack of depth”, or “not feeling the song.” But then you listen to them off stage and all you hear is “I have wanted this al my life!” Have they really? Since birth, all they have thought about is Nancy? It’s a very small part, why didn’t they aim higher?! (more…)

With the final just twenty four hours away, everyone has their favourite, although unlike Joseph and Maria, many folks’ faves have since been sent packing. Has your Nancy left the building already? Or is the feisty one still there, waiting to win?

I liked Rachel and thought Sarah was a very talented lass. I also thought Ashley had a certain something; she wasn’t always on the money but, as a reality tv character, she had a real survival instinct which became very endearing. So, as you read through my ideal scenario for tomorrow, leave a comment whether you agree or not, as you guys have kept this blog going and your views are really appreciated.

First to go:
Hopefully Jessie. I know this Irish philly has a huge following but apart from the voice, which on the odd show has been exceptional, there is no star quality. The posture, the answering back to the panelists and the awkwardness of this performer needs ironing out and it will take more than a few months to do that.

Next:
Sam. There is no doubting that this girl has grown as a performer. But due to the constant praise, she seems to believe her own hype, beyond belief. The role itself requires some emotional depths to be plunged. Can you imagine the Bill Sykes scene, whereby he beats Nancy? Sam would either smile throughout or look blank, as she has no real acting style apart from earnest or happy. (more…)

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On Tuesday night (27 May 2008) Whatsonstage.com was joined by over 120 Theatregoers at the Duke of York’s Theatre in London’s West End for the most anticipated new play of the year, 21-year-old Polly Stenham’s That Face.

The first 25 people to book for the Outing were happy to learn that they had won a That Face posters signed by the cast. All of our Theatregoers were quick to settle into their top price seats to watch the funny, emotional and often thought provoking play that deals with alcohol abuse and relationships within a family in meltdown. (more…)

Alan Brien died last Friday. He was the first, and best ever, theatre critic on the Sunday Telegraph; indeed he was the first appointment to that newspaper when it was launched in the early 1960s.

That was the measure of Alan’s distinction. The Sunderland son of an electrical engineer on the town’s trams, he went to Bede Grammar School and Oxford via a stretch in the RAF at the end of the war including a raid on Hitler’s mountain retreat of Berchtesgarden.

He was both earthy and urbane, worldly and thoroughly radical, a brilliant talker and writer on many subjects and a great rival, as well as friend, of Kenneth Tynan. They don’t make critics like him any more, certainly not on the Sunday Telegraph, anyway.

He was a regular star contributor to Plays and Players when I edited the magazine in the mid 1970s. He was always late with his copy, to the extent that I used to have to go round to his Paddington apartment and wrench it physically from his own hands.

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After watching the results show, you become very aware of how inconsistent the panels’ comments are. Rachel received this comment from the Lord: “Bravo you! So good to see you come through like this.” If you missed the results show, read on and you will find out what I mean.

The Nancy mission was a good one this week. The ladies had to spend a night in a Victorian house; so Big Brother in the past then? Well, not quite as this was not the clever part of the task. They then had to speak and act the lyrics to “As Long As He Needs Me.”

The results were mixed. Barry praised Jessie, although was it just me or did she sound like Sean Connery? Rachel was brilliant and even Barry had to admit he was impressed. Jodie was heartfelt and is certainly coming on as an actress, compared with the earlier rounds. I just wish she would stop the histrionics at the end when she gets through. It must irritate those who are getting the boot! (more…)

Thank the lord (not ALW) that BBC iplayer exists, as I was out reviewing The Osmonds last night and forgot to record the show. So, having had the chance to catch up, it was clear that last night was one of the best shows of the series. Each girl had to raise their game and the performances really show the audience who could cut it and who should leave.

First up was Rachel who had a mammoth task. Andrew is not feeling her performances and she has been in the bottom two twice. So, she had everything to gain with her version of Cabaret. We were shown clips from a summit meeting in which the judges and Cameron (at last!) talked about the girls’ strengths and weaknesses.

They claimed that Rachel lacked heart, Jodie was too cabaret, Sam received praise but lacked emotion, Jessie was talked up via her voice but little else. But with Cameron Mackintosh on board, you feel that this show is entering a new phase. Put it this way, Barry should step aside for him!

Rachel - “Cabaret”
Back to the competition, Rachel was asked to bring individuality to the table and she certainly did that. Her version of “Cabaret” was an absolute show-stopper! She gave the sort of performance that the panel had been looking for. I felt that she connected with the material ten-fold, filling your living room with her personality. She could breathe life into Bill Kenwright’s ropey West End Cabaret. DVO thought it was “Phenomenal” and even Barry was swayed claiming that it was a “star performance.” (more…)

There have been two theatre non-stories given a lot of prominence in the media over the past few days.

The first is that Bill Kenwright is a cheapskate producer, blocking negotiations with Equity to increase the West End minimum wage from £500 to £550 a week. The second is that producers — Kenwright among them — might end up in prison if they distort critics’ reviews in their advertising.

I don’t see why actors should be paid above the minimum rate if their show isn’t heading for a profit. And none of them has to work for Kenwright if they don’t want to. And as for protecting the subtle meanings and jewelled prose of the theatre critics — do me a favour! We’re not talking, these days, of Bernard Shaw or Dorothy Parker, let alone Philip Hope-Wallace or Kenneth Tynan.

Producers only care about critics insofar as they provide advertising copy. So it’s up to the critics not to give them any. To start moaning that producers sometimes skim the odd epithet or fulsome sentence from an unfavourable notice is as foolish as to complain that critics have failed to represent the show fairly in the first place.

The development is part of the strict application of yet more bonkers European Union legislation in the field of consumer protection. It’s doubtful that even the nannyish EU law-makers can make life as frustrating for theatre owners as they already have done for farmers and fishmongers. And Richard Pulford, President of SOLT, doubts that any current practice contravenes these new directives anyway.

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The critics were invited to review Never Forget at the Savoy last night but were requested to hold those reviews until tomorrow. The idea was that they should experience a “real” audience while the pseuds, celebrities and hangers-on have their “gala guest night” tonight.

The same trick was turned at the opening of Bad Girls last year and didn’t seem to do the show any good: the “press” night was an atmosphere-free zone clogged up with critics and their plastic bags and the show closed fairly quickly.

Last night was different. Critics were surrounded by parties of young women who appeared to have been bussed in from Basildon while consuming alcopops by the vat load. The air was blue with foul language and stale with cheap scent and fizzy burps.

The show itself was audience-proof and surprisingly enjoyable. Even better was the interval, with critics spared the possibility of an Essex gang bang by herding together in the Mezzanine bar at the invitation of the management.

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It is very good news that the Broadway musical version of Spring Awakening is coming to the Lyric Hammersmith next year, although they will have to build out the stage and break down the proscenium to recreate the right atmosphere.

The musical is simply sensational, the best rock musical theatre piece since Rent and, before that, Hair. When I saw the show on Broadway last year it had not yet won eleven Tonys and had fully preserved its rough and tumble off-Broadway character.

Frank Wedekind’s original 1891 lyrical shocker of adolescence, sexual repression, masturbation and overbearing schoolteachers comes to the stage in Oxford next week courtesy of the OUDS, the Oxford University Dramatic Society, with beautiful young temptress Anna Popplewell, a film star undergraduate (she is appearing in the Narnia films), playing Wendla Bergman.

Forty years ago, the same play was given on the same stage — and I was in it, typecast, naturally, as one of the wankers in the dormitory! Not the OUDS, but the ETC, the Experimental Theatre Club, presented that production at the Playhouse.

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Last night 150 Whatsonstage.com theatregoers saw the outstanding Vanessa Redgrave performing the one-woman show The Year of Magical Thinking at the NT Lyttelton (which was also the venue for the March outing to Never So Good).

Based on the book by Joan Didion, the play tells of her struggles to come to terms with the death of John Gregory Dunne, her husband of 39 years, who died in 2003. This was followed just two years later by the death of their daughter from acute pancreatitis. The stage adaptation of The Year of Magical Thinking premiered in March 2007 at Broadway’s Booth Theatre, where it ran for five months and earned Redgrave a Best Actress nomination at last year’s Tony Awards. (more…)