We reported earlier today that Coronation Street is being brought to the stage in a ‘Live — Abridged!’ version.

Doubtless this will trigger much opprobrium, but in fact this screen-to-stage adaptation has a decent pedigree…

The writer Jonathan Harvey

Seventeen years ago he was hailed as the Evening Standard’s most promising playwright, and since then he’s had works staged at The Royal Court, The Donmar Warehouse and The Criterion Theatre, as well as fitting in writing scripts for Corrie in his spare time.

Abridgements

Anyone who’s seen the Reduced Shakespeare Company mock their titular writer, the entirety of literature, cinema and sports, the history of America, and God herself will know that when there’s high melodrama to be had, the only way round it is to crush it into a two-act theatrical performance and play it for laughs.

Television to theatre

Alright, this one’s pushing it a bit. The only TV adaptations I can think of off-hand are the Olivier Award-winning Acorn Antiques: The Musical (which played the Theatre Royal Haymarket in 2005) and Bad Girls: The Musical (which played the Garrick in 2007). However, it is a fact that big screen-to-stage as a general concept works very well, as we are seeing right now with the triumphs of Legally Blonde and Sister Act.

So what do you think, hit or flop? More to the point, will you be buying tickets for Coronation Street: Live – Abridged?

The New Year, a time for fresh starts, resolutions and wish-list-making. What am I hoping for in the forthcoming 12 months?

A hit on Broadway for La Cage Aux Folles.
Douglas Hodge deserves it, and New York audiences deserve to enjoy this adorable, intimate, heartfelt, tender show for many months to come.

A hit in the West End for Legally Blonde.
Now, in addition to my wishlist, I have a secret subset of predictions, and I don’t mind revealing that one of them comprises the names of the theatre critics who will pan the festival of pink. Regardless, I hope that the inevitable mixed reviews will not put off the public from enjoying this show for what it is — a fun production with a nicely-written score and a wonderful comedy talent in Sheridan Smith.

Spamalot to go on tour.
It’s been rumoured for ages, with the legendary Biggins linked to the role of King Arthur. I genuinely think this would fare well outside of London, what with the suburb-dwellers of a certain age’s residual affection for Monty Python. And if Biggins is in it, so much the better.

The Rocky Horror Show to play a few weeks in the West End.
This production had a couple of dates at the Playhouse in mid-2006, but since then it’s been all over the UK, and has even secured itself a world record (biggest-ever Timewarp on Brighton beach in October, since you ask). Admittedly I’m biased because it’s one of my favourite shows and I adore Richard Meek, who’s about to rejoin the cast as Brad, but nonetheless I think that it’s time for Rocky to return to the capital.

Refurbishment!
Some kind of magical transformation to take place in all old-style theatres to permit people who are taller than the average 1890 audience member to stretch their legs and walk through doors without stooping. Refurbishment, you say? What a quaint idea!

Hugh Jackman to come to the UK.
He and Daniel Craig can transfer A Steady Rain if they want, or he can do a musical if he prefers, I really don’t care. We just need some Jackman.

Too Close To The Sun to be released as a cast recording.
Oh, no, wait, we already got that.

Happy New Year, everybody!

People laughed at me on Thursday night. Admittedly, they may laugh at me more often than I notice, but this bout of hilarity was obvious. And it was all because of some pillows.

You see, I’ve sat through more hours than I care to recall on the benches at the Menier Chocolate Factory. And every time I have come out with horrendous pins and needles down my legs and a terrible pain in my lower spine. (After A Little Night Music, I ended up with a trapped nerve in my back.) And I never, ever, ever learn.

So this time, when I went to see Sweet Charity, which I knew I’d love and didn’t want ruined or marred in any way, shape or form, I took pillows. I created a little booster cushion for myself, with a nice lumbar support. My fellow audience members sniggered and doubtless whispered about the strange journalist lady who carries bedding around in her giant bag, but I was sure that I would be the most comfortable viewer. And indeed as I saw other people wriggle around and attempt to restore feeling in their numb limbs, my forward-thinking was proved to be most wise.

So I wondered about other people’s theatre-going quirks. Americans famously do not understand the concept of eating ice-cream at the interval (sorry, “intermission”) of a show. And speaking of food consumption in the theatre, two lovely ladies sitting behind me ate a big tub of noodles all the way through the last night of Too Close To The Sun.

So what preparations do you make? Do you pack yourself a coolbag full of edible goodies? Take a spare set of spectacles, just in case? Bring along your own binoculars?

Share those secrets with me in the comment box below. I won’t tell anyone. Honest.

Too Close To The Sun began previews at the Comedy Theatre this week. Not that you’d know it.

I write about musical theatre for a living and so far the only publicity materials I’ve seen for it have been a small poster at a Tube station (one of the ones next to an escalator, rather than the big ones on the platform) and a single banner advert on a website.

Marketing of new shows interests me, particularly in these tough times. After all, advertising and promotional materials need to convince you to fork out your hard-earned money to see a show you know nothing about in preference to one of the old stalwarts, which are tried and tested.

You know what you’re getting with Phantom, Les Mis and The Lion King; they’ve been around for years. In the case of shorter-running shows, a big name is a big draw – such as Priscilla (Jason Donovan), Hairspray (Michael Ball, soon to be Brian Conley), and La Cage Aux Folles (Graham Norton, and John Barrowman taking over in September).

But what if, like Too Close To The Sun, you’ve got a new show that’s not been based on a famous film and doesn’t have a TV star to call upon for free publicity? When Spring Awakening opened at the Novello back at the start of the year, it had the benefit of excellent reviews, a gorgeous cast, and a rocking score with literary pretensions and swearwords. But it ran for only two months before poor ticket sales caused it to close.

The general consensus seemed to be that the show didn’t sell partly because of poor advertising. When it first transferred, there were three posters for it around London – one with Aneurin Barnard gazing intently at the camera, one with Charlotte Wakefield leaping into the air, and one with Iwan Rheon grasping a mic stand punk stylee. None of those images really summed up the production or gave any idea of what it was about, and it seemed that the powers-that-be noticed that pretty quickly, opting to switch to a photo of Barnard and Wakefield in an clinch, portraying the theme of forbidden teenage lust – but perhaps the damage had already been done. And when you’re running a newish show at the Novello (or any non-Shaftesbury Avenue theatre – such as the Comedy), you’re going to need top-notch advertising to drag in the punters, because you won’t get much walk-in trade.

A current poll on the WhatsOnStage forums (http://www.whatsonstage.com/board/index.php?showtopic=7223) indicates that the most important factor when deciding what show to see is the cast, then, fascinatingly, the cost. But this again is linked to marketing – it’s all very well having a bunch of terrific ticket offers throughout its run, but that’s no use if nobody knows about them except for the faithful devotees who’d pay full price anyway.

So will Too Close To The Sun succeed?  Based simply on pure economic fact, I’d have to surmise that it won’t. Fortunately it’s booked in only for a limited run till September – but unless the producers think more carefully about their marketing strategies, the sun could set on it even sooner than that.

Here’s a question for you: which regional theatre won the Special Achievement Prize at last year’s TMA Awards? Eh? Any ideas? Maybe the Theatre Royal in Bath? Or that one in Yorkshire where Lenny Henry did Othello? Good suggestions, granted, but both totally wrong. The winner of last year’s TMA Special Achievement Award for Regional Theatre was… The Latitude Rock Festival.

(Audible gasps from the stalls)

Indeed! Running for three days in mid-July in that bastion of unbridled rock debauchery – Suffolk – Latitude has been showcasing some of the best new theatre in the UK for the past four years. This year the genre-bending festival will feature performances from the RSC, the Pet Shop Boys, the National Theatre, Grace Jones, the Third Eye Theatre, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds and the Bush Theatre. There will also be some book readings from the likes of Jackie Kay and some poetry from Simon Armitage and HRH, the Poet Laureate, the Rt. Hon. Sir Andrew Motion OBE, CBE, BBC.

A mixed bag I think you’ll agree?

Like I said, now in its fourth year, the festival will play host to a musical in its specially-designed theatre arena for the first time. Che Walker’s Been So Long will transfer to Latitude following its world premiere at London’s Young Vic this summer… Exciting, certainly, but not exactly Hendrix at the Isle of Wight is it?

The RSC caused quite a riotous stir with a piece about zombies last year. This time they return to the lazy town of Southwold as a troupe of wandering troubadours who will be reciting sonnets and floating a 30m portrait of the Bard made from daisies and buttercups through the festival. Ah! That’s more like it! The spirit of Woodstock lives on.

Groovy.

A little more To The Lighthouse than Bring Your Daughter to the Slaughter, the literary leanings at Latitude have carved the fledgling festival a niche all of its own in recent years. If Reading is for rockers and V is for chavs, Latitude is certainly for people who like their music with a certain poetic twist. Saying that, they did have The Mars Volta play there last year and they’re heavier than the matter leftover when a star collapses in on itself.

So, for the fastest growing cultural smorgasbord in this Sceptred Isle of ours, nip down to Latitude at Southwold this summer… They do a tasty line of real ales there too, so I’m told. It’s a rock festival Jim, but not as we know it!

British writers and performers picked up a bevy of gongs last night as Slumdog Millionaire triumphed at the Academy Awards.

Even the Prime Minister remarked on British successes this morning. Gordon Brown insisted that the results proved that the UK film industry was ‘leading the world’. Quite an exclamation I think you’ll agree?

All this success points to the fact that 2009 is set to be a big year for the British film and theatre industries. The West End, crammed with high-profile stars, promise to capitalise on the rejuvenated interest in British Arts that last night’s Oscars will generate.

Kate Winslet picked up a wee gold chap for Best Actress for her performance in The Reader. With a stringy tangle of nominations caught up behind her, Winslet’s triumph last night is seen as a long overdue accolade. The Titanic star, who made a rather gushy mess when she picked up a Golden Globe last month, managed to rein in her acceptance speech in Los Angeles yesterday and gave a fairly dignified turn at the podium.

Her husband, West End luminary Sam Mendes, wasn’t nominated in the director field this year. After directing her in Revolutionary Road, Mendes was put forward for the Golden Globe but was left off the automatic-invitation list at this year’s Oscars. Fellow Brit Danny Boyle had no qualms about his RSVP as he won both the Golden Globe and the Oscar for directing Slumdog Millionaire.

Cutting his directorial teeth in the theatre, Danny Boyle even picked up a Time Out Award in the 80s for his innovative staging of Edward Bond’s Saved. Working with the RSC for five productions, Boyle’s latest cinematic success can be traced right back to his classical training.

So, with Brits swarming all over the Oscars like ants on a sticky bun, does this mean British cinema will finally get the recognition it deserves? Or is all this just a flash in the cinematic pan?

What do you reckon? Think the Academy made any howlers last night? Who do you think should have got their hands on the shiny gold statue?

Chicago is the longest running Broadway transfer in the West End and it’s amongst the most popular too. Since the show opened in 1997 it has seen its fair share of cast changes but no other show on Earth seems to tempt celebs into treading the boards like Chicago.

Chicago certainly has something special that draws in the TV personalities. Some of them are hardly surprising, R’n'B singer Usher appeared as Billy Flynn on Broadway recently and Nigel Planer took a turn as Amos Hart in the 1990s, others however are slightly stranger.

For an actor, playing Shakespeare can be the defining peak of an illustrious stage career. However, if it doesn’t work out it can be a right gruelling ordeal. Show and Stay^® look through some of the Shakespearean performances we might wish never were…

With Jude Law and Lenny Henry about to attempt the supreme English poet, we have a look at some of the dud performances that have left the actors with a good deal of eggy-weg all over their Chevy-Chases. Even reputable actors like Law have come unstuck in the past, forsooth. Check out what Nicholas de Jongh made of luminaries Alan Rickman and Helen Mirren’s performance of Anthony and Cleopatra (respectably… naturally):

“They rose to erotic ardour last night with little more enthusiasm than a pair of glumly non-mating pandas at London Zoo, coaxed to do their duty.”

Not exactly earth shattering was it? One can’t imagine one being picked to play Her Majesty on the back of that one, could one? Well saying that, tell the Queen she’s approaching anything akin to ‘erotic ardour’ and you’re liable to get your head lopped off.

Anyway, as it turns out, there’s more. Highlighted in The Guardian last week, some of our most respected actors have received utter pannings when they’ve ventured into the Shakespearean realm. The loveable Richard Briers’s stab at Hamlet went down with WA Darlington as follows:

“Richard Briers last night played Hamlet like a demented typewriter”

Blimey.

Obviously Hamlet is a whole can of horribly indecisive, vaguely suicidal worms, but Macbeth has been a sticky wicket in the past too I’ll have you know. Take a look at how the following came a cropper trying their hand at the Scottish bloodbath:

Anthony Hopkins: “He gives the impression he is a Rotarian pork-butcher about to tell the stalls a dirty story.” (Felix Barker)

Peter O’Toole: “Chances are he likes the play, but O’Toole’s performance suggests that he is taking some kind of personal revenge on it.” (Robert Cushman)

Simone Signoret (as Lady Macbeth): “A concial bell-tented matron who moves on wheels like a draped Dalek surmounted by a beautiful Medusa head.” (Alan Brien)

And again,

Peter O’Toole: “He delivers every line with a monotonous tenor bark as if addressing an audience of deaf Eskimos.” (Michael Billington)

Well, well, well. Is this a dagger I see before me? No, just a bunch of hot, twisty knives stuck in your back!
So, Lenny, Jude, Listen up: don’t mess up or you’ll get slammed! No, that’s not the lesson; the lesson is: even the greats get it wrong sometimes.

The West End has a rather busy time of it this week. With so many shows set to open you can’t move in central London for bumping into a premiere and tripping over a red carpet! Show and Stay^® take a look at the best of what’s coming up…

Well, it would seem that big-name productions in the West End are a little like London buses: you get nothing over the frosty few weeks at the end of January, and then you get a whole crash of them ramming up at once. Walk through the West End this week and the streets must look like a huge plume of twisting colours and sparkly bulbs advertising the advent of upcoming premieres.

For example, tonight sees the opening of not one, not two, but a veritable trinity of anticipated productions…

First up is the rather dreamy James McAvoy in his long-awaited return to the stage with a revival of Richard Greenberg’s Three Days of Rain. Starring alongside the BAFTA award winning actor are Nigel Harman and Lyndsey Marshal. Directed by Jamie Lloyd, the production previewed at The Apollo on 30 January but opens officially tonight.

Initially opening in 1999 with Colin Firth and David Morrissey, a 2006 Broadway revival starred Julia Roberts. Three Days of Rain? More like Three Casts of Celebrities.

Also opening on 10 February is Touched… For the Very First Time. A one-woman play about an obsessive Madonna fan, Touched features the return of the former Mrs Gary Kemp and Mrs Jude Law, Sadie Frost to the stage. Appearing at the Trafalgar Studios, this exciting and zany comedy is a piece of new writing from Zoe Lewis. Up-beat and funny, this nostalgic play is one to look out for.

The other high-profile play opening Tonight is the RSC’s run at the Hackney Empire with Othello. Directed by Kathryn Hunter, the production stops at Hackney for just one week during its national tour. Starring the up and coming Patrice Naiambana, the production has been warmly received around the country.

Of course, theirs is not the only Othello opening this week… but we’ll get back to that later. First let’s look at what’s opening on Wednesday.

Covered by Show and Stay last month in our news section, the thought provoking production Caravan opens at the Royal Court Theatre on 11 February. A huge hit at the Edinburgh Festival, this intimate piece of drama (which all takes place in an actual caravan, parked outside in Sloane Square) focusses on the flooding that hit Britain two years ago.

Thursday sees the much-anticipated opening of Steven Berkoff’s retelling of On the Waterfront. Another huge hit at last year’s Edinburgh Festival, the critically acclaimed piece of theatre re-imagines the classic movie in Berkoff’s distinctive, physical style. Playing at the The Theatre Royal Haymarket until 25 April, On the Waterfront promises to be one of the must-see productions of 2009.

Now, I promised that there’d be news of another Othello… and here it is: of course, it’s Lenny Henry’s stab at the Bard. Opening on Sunday at the West Yorkshire Playhouse (well, no, it isn’t in the West end… it is in West Yorkshire though), Henry’s Othello is certainly an intriguing prospect. Show and Stay first covered the story in our previous blog post. Intriguing and bizarre, we’ll just have to wait and see if Lenny’s go at ‘the Moor’ will trump the other shows opening this week… it’s a north/south divide!

As Lenny Henry puts the finishing touches to his performance of Shakespeare’s Othello, we take a look other comedians’ attempts at playing the straight man.

“Hang on a minute, hang on just one minute there… what?! Lenny Henry is playing Othello? Woah, woah, woah, when did this happen? Lenny Henry? What?”

That, to be honest, is the usual reaction if you stop someone on the street and tell them that Mr Dawn French is going to play the moor of Venice. Comes as quite a shock doesn’t it? I told it to some old lady on the bus once and she dropped her shopping all over the top deck. There were oranges rolling around between the seats, it was awful.

As fanciful as it sounds however, Lenny Henry is set to play Othello at the West Yorkshire Playhouse from February 14, 2009. Quite a Valentine’s Day huh? I suppose we’ll have to wait and see just what our chap from Dudley makes of one of Shakespeare’s most intriguing and enigmatic protagonists.

Of course, Lenny isn’t the first comedian to try and play it straight. In fact the West End is full of them…

Not too long ago the hi-octane, practically cartoon-faced comedian Lee Evans took a break from his monumental touring schedule to play in the revival of Pinter’s The Dumb Waiter. And, if we’re going to be honest, it sounded like he gave it a good go.

Peter Brown from the London Theatre Guide said: “His performance in The Dumb Waiter is not only riveting and totally believable, it is a million miles from the comedian I’ve previously seen.” Blimey. Maybe Lenny might be able to pull it off then.

Other notable comedians that have given turns in the West End of late are Les Dennis and the polyphonic Alistair McGowan…

Les summoned up all of his Family Fortunes experience to play the gaffe-prone Sergei in the tacky mishap Eurobeat. Not a huge hit with West End theatre-goers, Les picked himself up, dusted himself down and nipped down to the Cambridge Theatre to play Amos Hart in Chicago. Now he’s off to the West Yorkshire Playhouse to perform in a revival of J.B Priestley’s When We Are Married. Running from April 4 to April 25, Dennis’s stint on the boards follows Henry’s Othello almost directly. Two comedians in two shows? They’re taking over!

Alistair McGowan has had a slightly more illustrious theatrical career. In 2006 the comedian joined the RSC for The Merry Wives of Windsor opposite Simon Callow and Dame Judi Dench. The following year Alistair appeared in the West End revival of Little Shop of Horrors and then Cabaret, while last year he made his directing debut with Noel Coward’s classic Semi-Monde.

So, it obviously can be done. Whether or not Lenny Henry can pull off one of Shakespeare’s dark and tragic plots will have to be seen. How do you think he’ll do? Reckon he’ll make a success of it? Or fall flat on his wide, cheeky grin? We’d love to hear what you think.