Category Archives: Theatre

And More of Sir Simon

09 Saturday Dec 2017

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And just in case you wonder, no: Sir Simon is most definitely NOT appeased.

I went to see Canterville again last night, and things kept happening. First, Mr. Otis had to croak his way through, thanks to a gigantic throat-ache. Then the points keeping Sir Simon’s cloak in place gave, so the cloak dropped to the floor and mingled with the chains, very nearly sending our poor Ghost a-tripping. And finally, we suffered (very much, believe me!) through two and a half missed entries.. Continue reading →

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The Ghost in the (Stage) Machine

07 Thursday Dec 2017

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So, the Canterville Ghost’s second first night came and went – and it was… interesting.

You wouldn’t believe the amount of things that saw it fit to happen. missed cues, blanks, last minutes flying rescues (because the Company is made up of fast thinkers), hitches, mixed-up lines, missteps, misplaced props, a wobbly wing… and the most egregious of them all: our Duke of Cheshire wandering onstage during a scene where not only he didn’t belong – but the Otis Twins were commenting his absence in detail – much to their harried mother’s despair… Continue reading →

A Paper Dentist

23 Thursday Nov 2017

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Because I’m going to the dentist this afternoon, for my first ever canal root therapy, I’m wallowing in abject terror – and all I can think of is dentist-related.

Therefore, from the first act of George Bernard Shaw’s You Never Can Tell:

In a dentist’s operating room on a fine August morning in 1896. Not the usual tiny London den, but the best sitting room of a furnished lodging in a terrace on the sea front at a fashionable watering place. Continue reading →

Oh my ears and whiskers…

12 Thursday Oct 2017

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I’m late – sorry, sorry, sorry! It’s not that I forgot to post, but…

Frantic days, hectic week. We’re debuting Carlo Emilio Gadda’s Quer Pasticciaccio Brutto de Via Merulana (That Awful Mess on Via Merulana) on Saturday, and we have dress rehearsal in little more than an hour, and everything – but everything – has happened, ranging from the hilarious to the highly depressing, so much so that we weren’t even quite sure we could début at all until the other day, and is this ever a run-on sentence! Continue reading →

Mucho Ruido in Mexico

28 Thursday Sep 2017

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So, I was at the Globe for Matthew Dunster’s “Mexican” production of Much Ado About Nothing,and loved it.

Let’s begin with the time-travel quality of just entering the place, climbing up the wooden stairs (we opted for the gallery benches – with cushions), watching from above the groundlings standing in the pit… Oh, the thrill of it!

And then the play itself: lively, colourful, full of song and music, with touches of that kind of melancholy, angry lust for love and life that goes with wartime – given that the setting is the Mexican Revolution… Continue reading →

Acting Again…

14 Thursday Sep 2017

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So… I’ve gone back to acting.

Well, not really. It’s not that I’m going to take up acting again. Rather, I’ve acted again after… what, twenty years? It goes like this: as a teenager I decided that I wanted to be an actress, and began to take drama classes when I was sixteen. I happened to find a very, very good teacher – one who had the patience to draw me out and drill me hard. With rather good results, if I say so myself. I worked hard at it for four or five years, thinking that I’d go on with it, and go professional… Continue reading →

Just in case you wonder…

08 Tuesday Aug 2017

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How did Shakespeare in the Jungle go, after all?

The answer is: surprisingly well.

Well, the mosquitoes were many, Chinook-sized, and hungry, and the heat murderous – but, in spite of that – and of and the lack of advertising – the garden filled up to capacity… And let me tell you this: few things galvanize a performance like an unexpected audience. Continue reading →