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Olivier Audience Award shortlist: four musicals and a horse
9th February | 0 comments | 0 people like this
I promised you a reminder to vote in the second round of the Olivier Awards' brand-new category, the Audience Award - so here it is.
The winner of the Audience Award for Most Popular Long-Running Show of 2009 is determined by the votes of the general public - the first time an Olivier Award winner has been decided by anyone outside the Society of London Theatre. The first round of voting... -
Excuse me, you’re standing in my dead men’s shoes
28th January | 0 comments | 0 people like this
Theatre reviewing is a dead men's shoes business. One someone lands a chief critic position at a national newspaper, they'll traditionally hold onto that position until they're buried or senile. So for all the deputies and second-stream critics, and for all us up-and-comers watching hawklike for new deputy or second-stream opportunities, the voluntary retirement of two chief critics within a year of one another should have been a cause for...
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The Noughties according to Theatre503
22nd January | 0 comments | 0 people like this
What do you remember about the Noughties? (Yes, it turns out that is what we're calling them.) Theatre503 asked that question to ten playwrights - five established, five as-yet unproduced - and the result is Decade, a collection of ten ten-minute plays, each one representing a single year. So what do the Decade writers remember about the Noughties?
First and foremost, they remember global catastrophes. Summing up a whole year in... -
New Olivier Award celebrates the power of you
21st January | 0 comments | 0 people like this
This year's Laurence Olivier Awards will include a brand new category, the Audience Award, introduced to celebrate the nation's favourite long-running production of 2009. Notice that I say 'the nation's favourite', not 'the Society of London Theatre's favourite'. The nominees and eventual winner of the Audience Award will be decided by a public vote.
Public opinion polls aren't exactly news, especially in Theatreland; Andrew Lloyd Webber's Really Useful Group make their... -
No excuses: theatre is affordable
14th January | 3 comments | 2 people like this
Hey, did you see Avatar? Did you see it in 3D? What about IMAX 3D? What did you pay? I paid £12.50, plus online booking fee, to see it in IMAX 3D (at the Odeon in Wimbledon, if anyone's asking), and I was just one of millions: millions of people who have proven themselves willing to spend £12.50 or thereabouts on an evening's entertainment.
If you're one of those millions, you... -
Review: Lady Julia, Hen & Chickens Theatre
14th December 2009 | 0 comments | 0 people like this
Written by James and Ben Kenward after August Strindberg
Hen & Chickens Theatre, until Saturday 19th December, £12.00 (book tickets)In The Lamplight's Lady Julia brings August Strindberg's seminal Miss Julie<!--[if !supportFootnotes]--> bang up to date, throwing together high-born Julia (Annabel Topham) and her father's valet John (James Kenward) on New Year's Eve 2008. It's possible the company are hoping to replicate the...
Directed by Gabriella Santinelli
Starring James Kenward, Amy Rhodes, Annabel Topham -
Review: The Stefan Golaszewski Plays, Bush Theatre
14th December 2009 | 0 comments | 0 people like this
Written and performed by Stefan Golaszewski
Bush Theatre, until Saturday 9th January 2009, £15.00/£13.00 (book tickets)Two one-act plays back to back don't usually make a successful two-act play. Right? Which suggests it's probably no coincidence that Stefan Golaszewski Speaks About A Girl He Once Loved and Stefan Golaszewski Is A Widower work so well as a double bill; it seems likely they were always meant to be performed...
Directed by Phillip Breen -
Bush Theatre re-opens to unsolicited script submissions
7th December 2009 | 0 comments | 0 people like this
The moment the Bush Theatre axed its script reading team, citing a lack of funds, was the moment the recession became real for me. Beforehand I'd been taking my usual naïve/optimistic view of the situation, confident that it couldn't be as bad as the media made it out to be, and that it would soon blow over with no major consequences. The discontinuation of script reading at one of London's...
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Belt Up, Tim Crouch and breach of contract
27th November 2009 | 0 comments | 0 people like this
At this year's Edinburgh International Festival, Belt Up premiered a new piece of experimental theatre called Leasspell. It involved the company and audience standing together for half an hour, all blindfolded and telling one another love stories. While Belt Up themselves readily admit that Leasspell was not the most successful of experiments, it did raise certain issues that the company explored further this week in a discussion event charmingly titled...
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Launched: theblogpaper, the troll’s soapbox
25th September 2009 | 0 comments | 0 people like this
This time last week, thelondonpaper published its last ever issue. Just one week later another publication seeks to fill the resulting vacuum.
Anton Waldburg and Karl Jo Seilern-Aspang, creators of theblogpaper, style their new freesheet "the first user-generated newspaper in the UK". Users submit articles and photos to theblogpaper.co.uk, where their content is rated out of five by the community. The highest rated content in each category is then published in...
CONTRIBUTOR
Matt Boothman
Arts journalist Matt Boothman talks performance, playwriting and criticism from London's fringe, where theatre is both challenging and affordable.
