Sean Holmes’s fine revival of Trevor Griffiths’ modern classic Comedians is a reminder of how little great new work is produced on the regional theatre main stages these days.

The first night at the Nottingham Playhouse in February 1975 was an electrifying occasion, and not just because of the career-defining performance of Jonathan Pryce alongside Stephen Rea, Tom Wilkinson and Jimmy Jewel.
 
The premiere occurred slap bang in the first eighteen months of Richard Eyre’s artistic directorship, a period in which he premiered David Hare and Howard Brenton’s Brassneck, Adrian Mitchell’s Yorkshire version of The Government Inspector, Brenton’s The Churchill Play and Ken Campbell’s Bendigo.

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The National Theatre’s tribute to Ken Campbell last night was a delicious ragbag of capers including one I’d never seen before: Toby Sedgwick playing a rasher of bacon as it sizzled in the pan, flipped over, then sizzled again.

Sedgwick curled up into a crispy foetal ball, somehow reducing the length of his body into that of a well fried rasher.

We also relished the sight of Nina Conti proceeding to the back of the Olivier stalls with a fifty foot length of knicker elastic that she was stretching from the mouth of her “husband” in order to pang him out of his dangerous invasion of his own posterior.

Hubby gripped the lethal device in  his teeth. Was he ready? Yes. Knicker elastic rebounded at top speed in the wrong direction…

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The death of Stephen Gately is sad for many reasons, not least because the fellow was so utterly modest and charming. He was a joy to meet and more than just interesting to talk to.

Indeed, everyone who met him — fan, or fellow professional — sort of fell in love with him; as many people have said in the past twenty-four hours, his death makes no sense at all.

When Boyzone had their big hit with Andrew Lloyd Webber’s and Jim Steinman’s “No Matter What” from Whistle Down the Wind, Stephen became a regular at ALW’s Sydmonton Festival and was soon building a new career in the musical theatre in the revival of Joseph and as take-over casting as the Child Catcher in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang at the Palladium.

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In a revealing moment at today’s Press launch of Love Never Dies, the Phantom follow-up set among the freak shows and big dippers of Coney Island in 1907, Andrew Lloyd Webber and director Jack O’Brien said they had “no idea what the budget is.”

Alongside the two leads, Summer Strallen is expected to be announced as Mme Giry, so I hope her agent is taking advantage of  lax accountancy at the Really Useful and pushing for a maximum wage with City-style bonuses.

The composer finished the score six weeks ago, and the two people he most wanted to hear it, Cameron Mackintosh and Sarah Brightman, have expressed their pleasure, Cameron writing him the most touching letter he can remember receiving.

And how will he measure the success of the show alongside his other big hits?

“I’m happy with it as a piece,” said a mellow ALW, looking spruce and fit in a grey suit and mauve shirt, “and that’s enough for me.”

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There was not much in the way of theatre in the Alicante region these past few sunny days in Spain, though an upcoming production of “Phedra – the Ballet” looked distinctly promising.

But two pieces of shocking news filtered through the heat haze: the death, supposedly by suicide, of Matt Lucas’s former civic partner Kevin McGee, and the adoption of free sheet status by the Evening Standard starting next Monday.

In comparison, the announcement that Michael Gambon has withdrawn, after minor illness, from the new Alan Bennett play at the National, though regrettable, seems footling.

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A delightful  little theatre book has just come my way about a place I’ve never visited but which has thrived on the shores of Derwentwater in the Lake District these past ten years.

It’s called Encore! and it’s a history of the Theatre by the Lake written by David Ward, formerly a Guardian arts correspondent and even more formerly my head boy at a Catholic grammar school in North London.

So it would be quite nice to take revenge on his authoritarian ascendancy over me and say that the book stinks. But it doesn’t. It smells lovely.

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It was all very civilised and low-key at the RSC’s update and “plans for next year” bash in the Hospital Club today.

The club is a media haven in Endell Street, Covent Garden, which must have cost a small fortune to hire, especially as we assembled in the Forest Room, which looked like Bill Dudley’s next “virtual” design of As You Like It, all photographic wrap-around trees and yellow lighting.

In the stated avalanche of information and good intentions, one felt too overwhelmed to wonder, yet again, what the hell is going on.

Michael Boyd and his associate David Farr wore their shirts outside their trousers, not a good sign, and Farr– who walked out on commitments to  the Bristol Old Vic and the Lyric, Hammersmith in order, finally, to join the RSC – confirmed his “adaptability” with obsequious remarks in Boyd’s direction.  (more…)

Gore Vidal made his London stage debut at the National Theatre on Friday night as the announcer of the scene headings in Mother Courage.

And he sat at the back of the stalls in a wheelchair while he delivered them live through a microphone, attended by stage-management.

Or at least that’s how it sounded; his recorded voice will be heard at future performances.

His wry crackle of an almost live voice was dead right for the play, and the headings, and he took a prolonged round of applause when his close friend Fiona Shaw brought him - one of the truly great men of American letters in the last century - to the stage at the end.

There was obviously nothing planned, but he called for a microphone and, struggling gamely to his feet, with much assistance, declared “And the war goes on…” (more…)

The RSC, formerly known as the Royal Shakespeare Company, launched its four-year Russian project yesterday with a pair of new plays that were a lot better than I’d feared, though not as good as I’d hoped.

I was longing for an announcer to take the stage before The Drunks to say that the show would start half an hour late because the actors were still in the pub.

Alas, no such luck: instead the stage filled with actors in greatcoats swilling vodka, though how on earth they researched this scene I’ve no idea as there is a warped Stalinist working hours ban on alcohol throughout the company, onstage and off.

The second play, The Grain Store, started with the unsavoury sight of members of the paying public filling their faces onstage with the actors in Ukrainian peasant costumes.

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One of the refreshing things about Nicholas Hytner is that he never beats about the bush or ducks a question. At yesterday’s Press gathering to launch the National’s annual report, he offered no excuses for the delayed opening of Mother Courage.

“It took longer to get ready than it should have, and that’s bad and it’s wrong,” he said of Deborah Warner’s troubled production, which finally opens to the critics on Friday night.

Why did it fail to make its first preview, one wonders, when Deborah is so experienced at working in the Olivier? “She didn’t work quickly enough,” said Hytner, with chilling precision. “But in the end we bear the responsibility.”

He also confirmed that he had won the battle of the titles with Alan Bennett, who wanted to call his new play about W H Auden and Benjamin Britten (and a rent boy), which Hytner is directing, Caliban’s Day.

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