★★★
(Noël Coward Theatre, London, until 1 June 2013)
One of four plays in the Michael Grandage Season at the Noël Coward Theatre, Peter and Alice was already virtually sold out in January when I booked my ticket. Last Tuesday night, I found myself in my customary spot up in the back of the balcony, opera glasses at the ready. I hadn’t read any reviews of the play (I try not to, until after I’ve made up my own mind about things) and I’d been really looking forward to it.
(Gielgud Theatre, London, currently booking until 15 June 2013)
Every Tuesday evening the Queen meets with her Prime Minister to discuss the events of the previous week and to be apprised of plans for the coming week. No minutes are kept of these meetings and so they offer a unique opportunity for sovereign and minister to hold conversations in perfect confidence, allowing a frankness of exchange that is impossible elsewhere. In short it encapsulates the principles of our constitutional monarchy. The Queen benefits from the Prime Minister’s honest opinion of the present situation, while the Prime Minister benefits from the advice and experience the Queen has amassed during her sixty years on the throne.
★★★★½
(Apollo Theatre, London, playing in rep with Richard III until 9 February 2013)
I should, of course, have seen these plays the other way round: Twelfth Night in early January and then Richard III last night, spiced with the news that the skeleton found beneath a car park in Leicester is (almost certainly) that of the king. Anyway, it was a joy to return to the Apollo for my second encounter with the Globe company in their winter quarters. Once again I hung over the balcony watching the actors milling around as they were dressed, watching doublets and hose tugged on, bodices laced up, lead-white paint and rouge applied to faces. Even without their wigs, the actors gained a feminine elegance as soon as they were into their skirts; and I watched Mark Rylance’s hands fluttering convulsively as he was laced up, as if trying physically to shake himself into his role.
(Aldwych Theatre, London, currently booking until September 2013)
It’s 1935 or thereabouts and Jerry Travers (Tom Chambers), the most popular dancer on Broadway, comes to London to star in a show arranged by the impresario Horace Hardwick (Martin Ball). On his first night in town, Jerry’s exuberant tap-dancing in Horace’s hotel room disturbs the young lady staying on the floor below: the glamorous Dale Tremont (Charlotte Gooch), with whom Jerry is immediately smitten. A practised ladykiller, he romances her in the park and fills her room with flowers; but forgets to ever actually introduce himself.
★★★★½
(Palace Theatre, London, currently booking until September 2013)
It’s official. Happiness is Adam Cooper in a trilby.
The place is Hollywood, the year 1927, and Don Lockwood (Adam Cooper) and Lina Lamont (Katherine Kingsley) are the golden couple of the silver screen. Their on-screen romance has captured the hearts of their public and provided their studio, Monumental Pictures, with a series of smash-hit silent movies. But times are changing. Warner Bros have just released The Jazz Singer and suddenly the pictures have exploded into sound.
★★★½
(Apollo Theatre, London, playing in rep with Twelfth Night until 10 February 2013)
After garnering rave reviews at the Globe over the summer, this company has moved to winter quarters at the Apollo. A beautiful wooden set recalls the Globe’s stage while also suggesting the feel of an indoor Jacobean theatre: two arched doorways at the back of the stage are surmounted by a musicians’ balcony and on either side are two tiers of wooden seating. It’s a taste of what the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse is going to look like.
★★★★½
(Sadler’s Wells, London, until 26 January 2013)
Generally speaking I find ballet to be a foreign country: I can appreciate its beauty but I simply don’t speak the language needed to feel entirely at home there. I can appreciate the sweeping vistas of tulle and the exaggerated gestures, but when I was younger they only emphasised the strangeness of this art form, which was clearly something for an initiated elite – of which I was not a member.
★★★
(National Theatre, London, until 9 December 2012)
Venice, 1571. The Serenissima, at the head of the Holy League, has defeated the Ottoman Empire in the Battle of Lepanto and the great Republic turns to the artist Galactia (Fiona Shaw) to immortalise the victory in an immense canvas. They are taking a risk: outspoken, liberal Galactia is no state catspaw. Sickened by the slaughter at Lepanto, she decides to turn the triumphalist canvas into a seething denunciation of war: a tumult of flesh and violence, blood and severed limbs. This will be no vision of Christian victory, but an accurate representation of a battle whose rate of slaughter wouldn’t be equalled until the First World War.
★★★★½
(directed by Toby Frow; Globe Theatre, until 13 October 2012)
Another splendid evening at the Globe last night, although very different in character from Henry V a few weeks ago. Raucous, bawdy and lively, Toby Frow’s Shrew is rich with physical comedy and slapstick. It’s fantastic to watch something like this at the Globe, because more than ever you come to understand the vibrancy of theatre in Shakespeare’s day. The audience feeds off the exuberance of the actors, who in turn draw it back from them: to see a successful comedy in this theatre is to feel symbiosis in action.
★★★★
(directed by Dominic Dromgoole; Globe Theatre, until 26 August 2012)
A visit to the Globe is always a treat. No matter what you go to see, the setting is an experience in itself. You will know it by now, from pictures if not from your own visits: the stage with its golden columns and painted ceiling, embraced by the galleries with their stout posts and hard wooden benches; the pit open to the skies. The play opens with trumpeters and music – there is no curtain – and always closes with a rousing country dance. My seat last night in the second row of the Lower Galleries was particularly splendid, giving me just gave me enough height to see over the heads of the intervening groundlings. I even treated myself to the hire of a cushion (£1).
The Idle Woman 