Some things never change, thank God, and Friday Night is Music Night on Radio 2 is one of them: pop classics and show tunes played by the BBC Concert Orchestra with special guests and broadcast live these days from St Luke’s in Old Street.

I went along on Friday and had a ball: Tchaikovsky, Delius, Lehar and Brahms and, suitably enough in Vaughan Williams’s fiftieth anniversay year (he died in 1958), the beautiful Fantasia on Greensleeves from his Merry Wives opera.

This is the orchestra that is subjecting itself to the humiliation of being conducted by David Soul, Bradley Walsh, Goldie, Sue Perkins and the rest in the sad television series Maestro, and our host Petroc Trelawny declared on air that tonight’s concert would therefore be conducted by Jane Asher…a few nervous titters were becalmed when Christopher Warren-Jenkins — the real conductor — obligingly bounced on to the stage, his white bouffon hair-do commanding involuntary pizzicati as he did so. 

The evening made me feel like a male super-model.  No, I’m not on the turn: it’s just that most of the free ticket wallahs were in their seventies and dressed in crimplene. But what a setting! St Luke’s is a fine Hawksmoor church that was falling down until rescued and restored and inhabited as its second home by the London Symphony Orchestra.

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It is curious how certain theatre events are defined by their audiences. Last night’s crowd at the Young Vic seemed enthralled from the start, no doubt basking in the benign glow emanating from director Peter Brook’s apricot shirt.

Amazingly spry at 83, Brook twinkled like a star in that shirt, seated next to his wife actress Natasha Parry. People were having a good time before the show even started. And there was a marvellous moment when the audience collectively took a false cue and a sudden hush descended, reducing the sweet usherettes in their red shirts to a state of muffled giggles.

I’ve seen Brook do this sort of thing in demonstration of how an audience responds when that magical shared sense of concentration kicks in. It is a singular phenomenon of the “one room” theatres like the Young Vic, where there is no division between actors and audience in the same space.

The theatre can be as large as Epidaurus, or the Courtyard in Stratford-upon-Avon, or the Olivier: the audience bonds in a way that is impossible in the compartmentalised West End theatres. There’s always that moment in pantomime when the dame throws sweets into the auditorium, and only one or two of them ever get as far as the grand tier, let alone the upper circle.   

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Something rare happened this summer. A revival of a 408-year-old play became hot news. No prizes for guessing why. The idea of the current Doctor Who, David Tennant, playing Hamlet at Stratford-upon-Avon provoked a media frenzy. Newspaper front pages showed a woolly-hatted Tennant addressing Yorick’s skull. The BBC’s Ten o’Clock News featured a live report from the Courtyard Theatre. I also found myself taking part in a discussion with Simon Russell Beale on Radio 4’s Today programme that one paper rightly judged “inane” – not, I hope, entirely our fault.

In one way the Hamlet hype was encouraging. It showed theatre had the capacity to capture the popular imagination. It drew attention not just to a striking performance but also to a first-rate production. And it meant that young people packed into the Courtyard as they doubtless will into the Novello when Gregory Doran’s production transfers. Some people get sniffy about all the stress on Tennant’s Time Lord credentials. But the reality is that audiences relish seeing stars. And all the Doctor Who-haa about Tennant reminds us that, in the modern world, theatre must in some way to be an “event”. (more…)

“Pass it on boys, pass it on,” exclaims the Richard Griffiths teacher in the Alan Bennett play, and the Olympic flag was duly handed on from China to Great Britain over the weekend in a blaze of excitement, a rather sad eight-minute cabaret from London featuring David Beckham kicking a football, and a very funny speech from Boris Johnson claiming bragging rights in ping pong.

The Leona Lewis song, though, despite all the righteous huffing and puffing that’s suddenly flared up, was no worse than the song the Chinese proffered at their opening ceremony (in which Sarah Brightman partnered a local pop star who resembled an unholy alliance between Engelbert Humperdinck and Denis Lotis), and at least she’s a global superstar.

She’s also a true East Ender, as is David Beckham, and I sincerely hope the Cockney flavour of that short taster is improved and worked on when the cultural programme gets underway. But who’s in charge? I note that Keith Khan has been quietly done away with, and we hear not a peep from Cameron Mackintosh or Jude Kelly.

I propose a joint artistic directorship of the rock impresario Harvey Goldsmith, the classical populist Raymond Gubbay, and Amanda Thompson of the Blackpool Pleasure Beach. That should do it. The last thing we want is an imitation, soulless Cirque du Soleil along the lines of the Chinese extravaganza. And why not a segment from the RSC?  
 
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Our long sold out Outing to Under the Blue Sky at the Duke of York’s theatre last night (21 August) was a huge success, with a complete cast turn out for the Q&A which was attended by almost all of our Theatregoers as well as a special guest, Catherine Tate’s mother.

Comprising of three interlinked stories, Under the Blue Sky follows three couples, all of whom teach at the same school, and all of whom have difficult and fractured relationships. Running at 90 minutes with no interval, our Theatregoers were able to make the most of a post show Question and Answer sessions, for which we were very happy to be joined by director Anna Mackmin, writer David Eldridge, and all six members of the cast - Chris O’Dowd, Lisa Dillon, Catherine Tate, Dominic Rowan, Francesca Annis and Nigel Lindsay. (more…)

When I saw Susan Stroman’s irresistible revival of The Music Man in New York eight years ago, I reckoned that the piece deserved another look over here and that Brian Conley would be ideal as Harold Hill, the travelling conman.

So it has proved at Chichester, where Conley leads the parade of seventy-six trombones in the rural Mid West and Scarlett Strallen partners him as the prim librarian who sings Till There Was You — the only item of musical theatre ever covered by the Beatles.

Catching up with the show was a real treat this week. Rachel Kavanaugh’s production, brilliantly choreographed by Stephen Mear, is admirably and impressively disciplined, even as it approaches its last week. And Conley, one of our few genuine mega-watt personalities in musicals and pantomime, demonstrates why he’s so wasted on those television quiz shows.

The audience was a sea of white hair, the bars abuzz with delight and anticipation, the sky dappled with sunshine after the inevitable day-time downpours. Luckily, the new-styled Brasserie restaurant was fully booked. One glance at its menu of “cured salmon and horseradish emulsion,” “sea bream and sauce vierge” and so on was enough to propel us over the road to the pub.

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There is nothing like going to Bath for having one. Each time I visit the city I get drenched, and Monday was no exception. I spurned the taxi rank on arrival as the sun was out and a fair breeze blowing.
 
My plan was to deposit my bags in a friendly pub, the Old Green Tree, and walk round the Royal Crescent and Victoria Park before meeting up with my trusty chum Robert Gore-Langton — known to some of us as Rob Gore-Blimey on account of his common Etonian demeanour and crude sense of humour– for supper and the opening of Alan Bennett’s Enjoy.

All went to plan until half way round the Crescent and the heavens opened. My sailing weatherproof was insufficient to withstand the onslaught, but by cleverly dodging between avenues of trees and remaining resolute, I was fairly well dried out by the time the storm passed, the sun returned and I achieved the central destination of the Roman Baths and the hideous exterior glass walls of the new Thermal Spa. The last thing I needed was any more water, so I sipped a delicious beer in the Green Tree.  

As for Enjoy, the audience lapped it up. Who’d have thought it, in Bath of all places? The ghastly main characters are surprised, as the stage directions read, “in the middle of a marriage;” a young man urinates through the letter box; the old boy, victim of a hit and run driver, passes out cold and entertains his wife and neighbour with an impromptu erection; and their house is knocked down at the instigation of their own son, a social worker disguised as a woman.

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A not very funny thing happened on the way to the Proms in the Albert Hall last night: stuck in a tail back in the park caused by road works in the area, I read a yellow sign by the Serpentine Gallery proclaiming that “delayes are suspected.”

Dogberry is alive and well and working for the road sign department of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea! O villain, who e’er thou art, thou wilt be condemned into everlasting redemption for this…dost thou not suspect my place, or my years, but only talk of delayes and humps and deductions?

I suspect the suspect achieved A grades in all A-levels and was appointed immediately chief suspector of the transport division and what is more is a wise fellow and which is more is an officer and a householder. Write him down an ass!

Our fellow guests in Proms director Roger Wright’s box had enjoyed no such diversion. Journalists Kim Fletcher and Sarah Sands had merely popped round the corner from their home in Notting Hill. They had driven. Where had they left the car? Oh, quite near the house!

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Our sell out Outing to see Connie Fisher and Alistair McGowan star in They’re Playing Our Song at the Menier Chocolate Factory last night (13 August) got off to a great start as all of our Theatregoers were treated to a free programme on arrival. With so many Thetregoers on the Outing, we took up the vast majority of the theatre, and with unassigned seating, it was a great chance for everyone to chat and get to know each other. Several people decided to arrive early and enjoy a meal in the Menier’s award winning restaurant.

They’re Playing Our Song tells the story of a love affair between lyricist Sonia Walsk and composer Vernon Gersch and mirrors the real life romance of Bayer Sager and Hamlisch who provide the book and lyrics for the musical. This is Connie Fisher’s first full stage role since leaving The Sound of Music in February. (more…)

I see that only four Broadway shows are unavailable at the half-price ticket booth (Jersey Boys, The Little Mermaid, Mamma Mia! and South Pacific) which means that only four Broadway shows are selling out, which is four more than in the West End.

Mind you, I went past the Prince of Wales yesterday afternoon and the House Full sign was up. And that’s with most folk milling around seemingly en route to the movie version, judging by the brochures I saw in several dozen pairs of hands.

In London, you never know whether to believe what you’re told about audience figures, because there’s no rigorous public documentation of them, as there is in New York (in the pages of Variety), though the new Mel Brooks show Young Frankenstein is refusing to play ball. Which means only one thing: it can’t be doing that well.

Piaf at the Donmar, however, is completely sold out. But there are only 250 seats to fill. No wonder artistic director Michael Grandage is bursting at the seams to get into the West End with his Kenneth Branagh-led season next month.

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