The arrival of the musical Spring Awakening in the middle of snow-bound London is a real tonic and I was mightily relieved to discover last night that the British version is no less tender or touching than its Broadway original.

If anything, it’s even more tender and touching. I sat next to Jenny Harris, former associate at the NT, who thought the show was unrecognisably better than the early version she saw in the little Atlantic Theatre off-Broadway. On Broadway, the Eugene O’Neill had a wider, more open stage that brought the actors and music right into the auditorium.

The Lyric Hammersmith’s not like that, more buttoned up, but in a curious way this suited the mood of adolescent break out in the songs and staging. And there’s the most wonderful neon strip light show playing round the rococo Victorian balconies, a brilliant emblem for the mix of nineteenth century Expressionism and indie rock music.

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The great comedian Max Miller used to sign off with, “There’ll never be another”. I feel much the same way about the person whose death dominated the news at Christmas – Harold Pinter. Of all the millions of words written and spoken in tribute to Pinter, one phrase haunts me. “Yesterday,” said David Hare in the immediate wake of Pinter’s death, “when you talked about Britain’s greatest living playwright, people knew who you meant. Today they don’t.” Simple but true. Not merely has a throne been vacated. I suspect there may never be another dramatist as effortlessly dominant as Pinter.

I felt much the same way after the death of Laurence Olivier in 1989. He was more than a great actor. He was the spokesman for, and symbol of, the profession, a title earned by his multiple roles as protean performer, National Theatre director and commercial producer. Whatever there was to do in the theatre, Olivier had done it. Today we have countless actors who inspire our affection. But no one individual embodies the art of acting in quite the way Olivier did. (more…)

Friday’s New Year party given by The Stage in the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, was not graced by the star of the resident show, Rowan Atkinson. But then Rowan’s been missing one or two performances lately, I understand, because of problems with his voice.

This is slightly unfortunate given that the weekend saw a big advertising campaign launched with Rowan’s grisly features “reviewing the situation” of the rave notices including the gushing tribute by that well known theatre critic Terry Wogan, who counts the production the finest he has ever seen in the West End.

Friends of mine have recently walked up to the box office and bought tickets, no problem (well, the problem last Wednesday night was that Rowan was “off”), yet some ticket agency is sending out email invitations to an expensive all-in hotel,dinner and show “package” – starting from £185 per head – with the statement that there are no more tickets available at the box office.

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