HIT FOR SIX AT THE OVAL

My headline might be an accolade for a new fringe show at Oval House, but instead I’m merely reporting the wonderful shot Andrew Flintoff played to win the final Test Match against South Africa in the adjacent cricket ground.

From my seat below the media centre at the Vauxhall end , I watched Freddie — he’s thus dubbed because of his resemblance to Fred Flintstone, the caveman cartoon character — heave the ball back over the spinner’s head and into the crowd.

I’m sure there were other theatrical types in the ground, but I didn’t spot any: the Oval mob is a wonderful audience, more dressed-down and easy-going than at Lord’s, the home of cricket; it’s Shakespeare’s Globe to the National Theatre.

The result was never in doubt after an hour or so, but the drama of victory was kept tight by some mean bowling and shrewd, unforgiving captaincy by the Springboks’ Graham Smith.

My weekend started with a visit to Wilton’s Music Hall in the East End. To have a good time, that’s all you have to do: go there.

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If there had been any lights on Shaftesbury Avenue last night, they surely would have been lowered in honour of Simon Gray, who died yesterday aged 71 of lung cancer.

Instead, three dark houses — the Lyric awaiting a flamenco show, the Gielgud bracing itself blankly for Six Characters from Chichester and the Apollo proclaiming a stage version of the film Rain Man — quietly attested the passing of the civilised contemporary well-made play in the West End.

To be fair, Gray’s heyday was a long time ago, in the mid 1970s, when Alan Bates first in Butley and then in Otherwise Engaged played archetypal Gray characters wrestling with their finer feelings and libidos in a world of mixed emotions cauterised by wit.

The grimness of Shaftesbury Avenue sums it all up, really. The place is supposed to be the epicentre of the greatest theatre business in the world and it looks like a complete dump.

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Last Monday night (4 August), over 100 Theatregoers joined Whatsonstage.com at the National Theatre for the world premiere of Michael Frayn’s new play, Afterlife in the Lyttleton theatre. Frayn is a British playwright and novelist who is best known as the author of such plays as Noises Off, Democracy and Copenhagen. His new play is directed by Michael Blakemore.

Afterlife is a dramatisation of the life of Max Reinhardt, a theatre and film director based in Austria at the begining of the Second World War whose ambition was to break down the boundary between theatre and the world it portrays. Each year at the Salzburg festival he directed the famous morality play, Everyman, until Hitler’s army began to interfear, leaving Reinhardt as vulnerable as the impoverished men he had overlooked before. (more…)

To stand or not to stand, that is the question posed by Michael Billington in the course of bemoaning the growing fad for automatic out-of-the-seat ovations. He cited audiences at The Female of the Species and Gone Too Far! leaping to their feet like salmon to the bait and deplored the habit as a filthy American one.

Steady on, old fellow, it’s only people standing up and clapping. I think I enjoyed both of those plays more than  Michael did, but personally I wouldn’t get to my feet for either of them simply because critics don’t do that sort of thing.

The Female of the Species hoo-ha was unusual, I admit, but there was an element of good will towards the play on the night that was not over-loaded, I felt, with backers’ bravado. And as for Gone Too Far! — that was a joyous black audience greeting a play on the Royal Court stage they recognised as coming from where they were at. They got down, so they got up.

Generally, though, Billybong has a point. If, in theatrical etiquette, a standing ovation is the ultimate accolade, like two ears — ear, ear? — for the matador in the bullring, then the practice is becoming too common, too automatic.

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How is it, that in eighteen years, I have never once visited the Opera in Holland Park? I made my debut on Saturday night at a glorious performance of Tchaikovsky’s irresistibly melodic and lyrical Iolanta and I shall sign up for next season immediately.

I had absolutely no idea what a wonderful experience this is. The theatre, seating over 1,000 people, has lately been improved with comfotable seating and and large white side panels to complement the marquee structure. A curtain raiser, a dance version of Stravinsky’s Pulcinella, had the peacocks in the park squawking in unison with the oboes.

The setting is magical. The original Jacobean castle, latterly known as Holland House, was bombed in the Second World War and gradually and partially restored around its formal gardens and the orangery, which serve as picnic areas and walkways.

Tchaikovsky’s one-act opera is a hymn to light in the story of a blind princess discovering her true love and recovering her sight. Why it’s not better known is an utter mystery to me now, and I shall make a bee-line for the concert performance conducted by Vladimir Jurowski at the Royal Festival Hall on 25 October.

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With the girls all getting cast, following the success of the TV hit show, we have started a discussion at one of our regional sites - WOS Manchester. Is Sam too young to play the experienced Sally Bowles in Cabaret? What do you think? If you want to add your thoughts, please follow the link here, as it would be great to hear from you.

Thanks, Glenn