London theatre summer

It is shaping up to be a good summer for theatre in London with lots of new shows and revivals and transfers We enjoyed the revived BOYS IN THE BAND and the new DREAMGIRLS recently - see Theatre label for reviews. 

Now I have booked for Andrew Scott as  HAMLET (my seventh stage Hamlet) transferring from the Almeida to the Harold Pinter Theatre for the summer season; and we cannot wait to book for the new National Theatre production of Sondheim's FOLLIES (above) opening in August and running to November, with Imelda Staunton (once she finishes her stint at Martha in the current WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF?) and the fabulous Tracie Bennett in the cast (she sings "I'm Still Here" ...). Others in the cast include veteran Gary Raymond. There is a cast of 37 and orchestra of 31. The last FOLLIES I saw was back in the late 80s or early 90s, with Diana Rigg and Eartha Kitt, and if the new one is as good as the National's A LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC we will be well pleased .... (booking opens on 5 May _ seats now booked for 20 September, whew!)

We have also booked for Part One (a mere four hours and ten minutes) of the National's ANGELS IN AMERICA, a live screening to our local cinema in June. I had better see how I like that before booking for part two! The cast includes Andrew Garfield, Russell Tovey and Nathan Lane, and is of course a revival of Tony Kushner's great play on the Aids era in Reagan America. 

I could still book for a live screening of that new VIRGINIA WOOLF ...... Imelda is giving a tour-de-force in that too, but I don't really like the play that much.
I don't usually bother with shows based on films but the new AN AMERICAN IN PARIS is getting all the raves, and could be a summer treat too ... and it has Jane Asher too. 

The Pass

An odd little drama that barely got a look in last year. My movie buff pal Martin hated it with a vengance .... 

Nineteen-year-old Jason (Russell Tovey) and Ade (Arinze Kene) have been in the Academy of a famous London football club since they were eight years old. It's the night before their first-ever game for the first team - a Champions League match - and they're in a hotel room in Romania. They should be sleeping, but they're over-excited. They skip, fight, mock each other, prepare their kit, watch a teammate's sex tape. And then, out of nowhere, one of them kisses the other. The impact of this 'pass' reverberates through the next ten years of their lives - a decade of fame and failure, secrets and lies, in a sporting world where image is everything.

It began as a play a few years ago, with Russell Tovey who must have had faith in the project as he leads the cast here (and shows off his buff bod), and it does raise important point on the closeted lives some professional sportspeople (not just footballers) must lead, at what cost to themselves, as they marry and create sex-tapes to avoid the rumours, then there are those eager hotel bellboys .... It gets rather tedious as one waits for something to happen, and its not very enjoyable - Tovey's character is totally repellant. Directed by Ben A Williams and script by John Donnelly. 

Theatre news

The New York theatre season is buzzing, just as much as the London one. The Arthur Miller estate is ticking over nicely too. That recent London A VIEW FROM THE BRIDGE has just finished in NY, with Mark Strong and the addition of a blonde Russell Tovey; and now that interesting new production of THE CRUCIBLE with Ben Whishaw Sophie Okonedo and BROOKLYN's Saoirse Ronan as Abigail. Here's Ben talking about it and more ....

Arthur Miller did a book signing (PLAIN GIRL) in London in his final years and one had to go along and get a copy signed by the great man. We were not allowed to speak to him, but just to be there in his presence was enough.

Soon: Four 'S's: SENSO, SANDRA, SISSI, MRS STONE; another list: 12 Other British '60s Movies; Cyd Charisse's skirt; those 50s/60s Italian compendium films (GOLD OF NAPLES, THE DOLLS, THE QUEENS, BOCCACCIO 70 etc); the trio of Audrey, Capucine & William Holden plus THE 7TH DAWN and THE LION,,

Gay Brit pop in the '80s .... hit that perfect beat, boy

What a gay week on BBC's Radio 2: first, an hour long documentary on gay British pop in the '80s with all the usual suspects, Boy George and co, but focused mainly on that song that meant so much to us: "Smalltown Boy" by Bronski Beat, led by Jimmy Sommerville. Jimmy has done several versions over the years, as mentioned here before, but it really spoke to us back in 1984 with that simply but oh so catchy hook, which they followed by the equally good "Why?" -  the video for "Smalltown Boy" is equally a time capsule of life in the 80s then.  Their album AGE OF CONSENT was essential too, and their following hits plus Jimmy with The Communards. I spent so much of the late '80s listening to them and The Pet Shop Boys as my then disk jockey partner Rory (1960-1996) played them a lot in the clubs in Brighton and Portsmouth.

The '80s were a tough time for the gays, as the gutter press demonised them in the age of Aids, as people like Kenny Everett and Russell Harty were hounded to their deathbeds, and later in the '90s, as boyband members like Stephen Gately of Boyzone had to 'come out' before the tabloids exposed them, and then found that nobody cared - like now when guys like Tom Daley, Ben Whishaw, Andrew Scott, Russell Tovey, or Zachery Quinto, Matt Bomer, Jonathan Groff in the States can come out and still keep their careers while the senior gays like Sir Ian, Simon Russell Beale, Sir Antony Sher, Sir Jacobi and co are still at the top of the league - a long way from back in the 1950s when Sir Gielgud was arrested but also found theatre audiences were not bothered ....   

Of course British pop always had a big gay element right back from the days of Larry Parnes and his stable of rockers - only Billy Fury was the real talent - then Brian Epstein with The Beatles, and laterly producers like Simon Napier Bell (Wham!'s mastermind - his book "Black Vinyl White Powder" details it all),  high energy maestro Ian Levine, and Nigel Martin-Smith who put Take That together knowing exactly what the marked wanted ... but then suddenly the boys were not hiding in the closet any more as pop poppets like Will Young and Joe McElderry threw caution to the winds and emerged from those closets into the daylight. 

I loved "Smalltown Boy" from the start though it did not really apply to me: I did not leave home because I was not loved, on the contary - but I was 18 in 1964 and wanted to be in London, not in a small town on the west coast of Ireland .... of course now I love going back there, and will be relocating there in a year or two. Take it away, Jimmy - who I saw around town a lot back then, in London and in Brighton - good to see he is still here and still working ...

Then, also this week, the BBC gave us a 4 part, 4-hour long series on The Pet Shop Boys, tying in with their new album SUPER, covering Neil and Chris looking back on their 30 year career, with fascinating comments (2 more programmes next week, one by the fab Frances Barber, who starred in their 2000 show CLOSER TO HEAVEN) and the boys are on Graham Norton's show tomorrow, on Good Friday. The following week's Norton show features that other great '80s survivor Holly Johnson (of Frankie Goes To Hollywood) with Take That's Gary Barlow - once so big but now tarnished by tax avoidance scandal - promoting their new single written by Gary. We will always have a soft spot for Holly's Frankie hits, and Gary's Take That promos like "Pray" and "Never Forget". Perfect pop.  PS: What has George Michael been up to lately? - while Boy George queens it up on BBC's talent show THE VOICE, while Markus Feehily (the gay one in Westlife) is now making interesting solo music as well, very dark deep house. Then there is Mika and Tiga and all the others ... 

Of course before Take That became a respectable stadium act their early videos are a scream now, as canny gay manager Martin-Smith had them prancing around in camp outfits (just like early Boyzone when managed by Louis Walsh!) like that early one "Do What You Like" where they end up naked with jelly smeared on their bums - outrageous! Comedian Peter Kay had a lot of fun with that in his incarnation as transgender X-Factor winner Geraldine McQueen (from Dungannon, Northern Ireland) with his "The Winner's Song" written by Gary Barlow - Simon Cowell must have been livid!. Geraldine and the boys spoofed it all again in their hilarious concert clip here: 

For the weekend (2)

Russell Tovey cooks your breakfast  .....

 I really must get into LOOKING, not seen much of it ....

The night manager's pass, 2016

Should one rave about a new BBC serial after just one episode? I feel like doing so after catching the first episode of new Sunday night 6-part thriller THE NIGHT MANAGER, an updated version of a 1993 John Le Carre novel. Event television: great cast, great story, brilliantly directed and one can hear and understand every word - unlike in that other BBC highly regarded series HAPPY VALLEY * where the actors mumbling on location cannot have been recorded properly? 

A night manager of a European hotel is recruited by intelligence agents to infiltrate an international arms dealer's network.

Directed by Susanne Bier, this grabs one from the first moment. Tom Hiddleston is Jonathan Pine, the ex-army man now working as the night manager of a classy Cairo hotel, when he has his first encounter with the world of mega-rich Roper (Hugh Laurie), who is an arms dealer on the side ..... Tom Hollander plays his nasty henchman, Olivia Colman is the M16 operative on their trail, Russell Tovey pops up as an embassy man reluctant to get involved, and the large cast includes Douglas Hodge, Katharine Kelly, Neil Morrisey, David Harewood and more. After event get out of hand in Cairo and the death of the woman Pine was trying to help (after copying those documents which incriminate Roper) the action suddenly shifts to Switzerland 4 years later Pine is now the new night manager, and Roper and his cohorts arrive by helicopter and Pine has to provide the service they expect ..... We will be looking forward to more of this.

* Speaking of HAPPY VALLEY - sometimes an actor can astound one. We hardly noticed Kevin Doyle in DOWNTON ABBEY as mousey Mr Molesley, but he is riveting here as the Police detective who murders his difficult mistress - fabulous Amelia Bullmore, another Sally Wainwright regular. Doyle was also fantastic in SCOTT & BAILEY as that serial killer, over several episodes. Wainwright creates great moments for actors, like Joe Duttine (CORONATION STREET's resident window-cleaner) who has a great scene in SCOTT & BAILEY when he is revealed as a paedophile killer, and those great episodes with equally marvellous Nicola Walker. Of course Walker and HAPPY VALLEY's Sarah Lancashire were both stalwarts of Wainwright's terrific series LAST TANGO IN HALIFAX..). 

Busy boy Russell Tovey also stars in THE PASS, which he played on the stage here a year or two ago, and is now the opening night film of the new LGBT film festival at the BFI here next month. This should be an intriguing drama too .... mixing in the world of gays and football and sportsmen keeping secrets ....  Directed by Ben A. Williams and scripted by John Donnelly.

Nineteen-year-old Jason and Ade have been in the Academy of a famous London football club since they were eight years old. It's the night before their first-ever game for the first team - a Champions League match - and they're in a hotel room in Romania. They should be sleeping, but they're over-excited. They skip, fight, mock each other, prepare their kit, watch a teammate's sex tape. And then, out of nowhere, one of them kisses the other. The impact of this 'pass' reverberates through the next ten years of their lives - a decade of fame and failure, secrets and lies, in a sporting world where image is everything.

Poldark and handsome

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Connoisseurs of BBC costume dramas are well served with the new series POLDARK, a re-boot of a 1970s series which I never saw. After a so-so new MOONFLEET (TV label) and a dreadful version of JAMAICA INN (too dark and murky and one could barely hear the mumbled dialogue) it is good to see a sunny Cornwall in this new series, from the popular novels by Winston Graham. 

Ross Poldark returns to England after fighting in the American Revolution. His family and friends thought he was dead. The woman he hoped to marry is now engaged to his cousin. His father is dead, and the property (a ti mine) he has inherited has been allowed to deteriorate. It is the late 1700s in Cornwall, England. This is a family drama, but is also about the challenges and conflicts between the rich and the poor. It is a time when fishermen are not catching much fish, tin and copper mines are closing down because prices are too low, but the price of food and rents are high. Ross faces the challenge of making his land productive, caring for the tenants who rely on him, and trying to win back the woman he loved - or finding a reason to live without her.

Cue lots of horse-riding on clifftops, nice period costumes, and a slow burn relationship between Poldark and the girl he rescues Demelza - particuarly after Demelza sees his skinny-dipping in the sea from the cliff tops .... This has turned out to be enormously popular here, with females (and not a few blokes) all agog over Irish actor Aidan Turner, the ideal brooding (complete with that scar) and he wears the period clothes well. Poldark. Last night's episode featured Robin Ellis, the original Poldark, as the judge with a harsh sentence for a poacher, despite our hero's pleading for him. Warren Clarke, in his last role, has some juicy moments too as Podark's uncle whose son has married Elizabeth, Ross's beloved.  

Its all perfect for late evening Sundays with a gin and tonic to hand - ditto MR SELFRIDGE and INDIAN SUMMERS (set in a very colourful Simla in India in the 1930s). We are being spoiled at the moment. If the BBC want more Cornish swashbuckling I recommend a new version of Daphne Du Maurier's FRENCHMAN'S CREEK (I saw the 1944 film recently and this lady and the pirate saga could do with a re-boot too). 

Another new series BANISHED has got a lot of attention too, I have not seen any of it yet, but may tune in this week to see the beefed up, butched up Rossell Tovey in the lead - Russ is also in the gay LOOKING on as well now, where he usually has trouble keeping his clothes on each week ....

TV: Cucumber, banana and S.S.A. !

QUEER AS FOLK was a television sensation back in 1999 - Russell T. Davies' groundbreaking series defined gay life and became a must see, a terrific mix of comedy and drama. The American version was also a success and ran for much longer, I never saw any of that, but we loved the British version, all two series of it, with Aiden Gillen, Charlie Hunnan and Craig Kelly). Russell then went on to re-boot vintage BBC series DR WHO which became another enormous success. I am not a DR WHO fanatic as such, but liked what I saw of it. Now, he returns with a new series: CUCUMBER, followed by companon series BANANA featuring minor characters who pop up in CUCUMBER, with an online follow-up TOFU. Confused? You will be  .... (cucumber, banana and tofu being accepted terms describing stages of male erection). 

We had high hopes for CUCUMBER but I bailed out after the second episode, as this this new series did not appeal to me at all. The main character Henry (Vincent Franklin) was unpleasant as indeed were most of them - Henry's partner Lance, and a younger guy Dean who seemed to live for fun and casual hook-ups. Nothing wrong with that, we all did it in our time... There there is petulant beauty Freddie - in what universe is he a sex god (and I speak as having seen him (Freddie Fox) naked on stage in THE JUDAS KISS a few years back (Theatre/gay interest labels).  As QAF defined gay life for guys in their 20s or 30s back in the 1990s, is CUCUMBER meant to be about older gays  in their mid 40s getting to grips with modern gay life now, with all its apps and hook-up sites? Henry and Lance split up after 9 years together - the sex had become non-existant, and Lance is avid for new experiences. In the first episode he brings back that drugged guy for a threesome, which does not quite work out, and ends with the police being called. Henry improbably moves into a large warehouse to share with younger guys Freddie and Dean .... It all got a bit boring for me about then, and I was quite happy to miss a few episodes, after Freddie got revenge on an ex-teacher of his ...

So we move on to episode 6, and suddenly I am watching the most shattering, brilliant 49 minutes of television I have seen in a long time, as Davies boldly re-writes the story by killing off one of his main characters. We are warned from the start as the titles flash up: , ‘Lance Edward Sullivan, 1966 – 2015’. as we follow British black Lance's life from birth to death. He is at first a baby, then a toddler, then hiding gay magazines. A great 80s soundtrack covers his teen years - Eurythmics and then Annie Lennox, as Lance (Cyril Nri) goes clubbing and has early dates. A hilarious montage shows him arriving at the family home each Christmas bearing gifts for his bewildered father, as Lance has a different guy in tow each year, until when he turns up alone - as his partner has died of that new affliction affecting gays - and is finally asked in. Then Henry enters the picture and we see them settling down and eventually breaking up, as Lance starts (foolishly) pursuing that conflicted guy Daniel (James Murray). 

We know something bad is going to happen as the ghost of Hazel (marvellous Denise Black from QAF) appears and warns him to go home, but it is one of those crazy nights and Lance rushes headlong to his doom, going back with Daniel who turns very nasty and ends up whacking Lance's head with a golf club (as he screams "now look what you made me do") as dying Lance sits there and sees moments of his life flash before his eyes. It is a brilliant episode by any standards, and makes one realise how lucky one was not to meet any psychos .....  It amounts to a shattering piece of television drama and is highly recommended. 

I wanted episode 7 (screened last night) to continue with the police calling to tell Henry what has happened and see his smug self-regard crumble, as the group reacted to the fallout of Lance's murder, but Davies instead opens the episode with his funeral, maybe a week later, and Henry seems back to being his usual snarky self, as family and friends gather. He gives in to his grief eventually but its a long time coming, during that crazy long car ride with Freddie and Dean as they try to find a nearby guy from their phone app - Freddie also gets turned down by a waiter at the funeral "who does not do over 21"!. Meanwhile Lance's sister has gained control of their house and is claiming half of it - did Lance not leave a will? Did they not have the right kind of mortgage where the survivor gets the whole property? 
The sister comes up with a killer line: Henry is not the boyfriend, he is just the ex - even though he paid for half the house, and she wants Lance's share. Events move on, as the guys are turfed out of the warehouse and Lance brings them all back to the house, and the sister leaves.  What happens next in the final episode next week? Lots of loose threads to tie up, will Henry ever be happy and liked? and what of Freddie and Dean and all the other guys?

Much more amusing was a documentary, aired in the USA in January: MY HUSBAND IS NOT GAY, about Mormon husbands (and their wives) who do not define themselves as gay, but that they suffer from 'SSA' - same sex attraction. Any man it seems can suffer from this condition - hence talking about it on television - which is ok as long as they do nothing about it. With the aid of their lovely wives the men, who all want families and marriage, do their best to overcome this affliction and be good Mormons. Rather awkward in the restaurant when there an is an attractive waiter and the wives ask if they find him attractive.... This is an engaging, amusing look at how people see themselves. Are they gays who want to live the Mormon lifestyle with wife and children? The husbands do get some time off the leash though to go on occasional camping weekends and one guesses what what goes on there stays there .... the look on a wife's face when the husband announces he is going away for the camping weekend rather says it all! This was on a cable channel here (TLC), and is worth catching, should it be repeated. 

We have not seen any of LOOKING yet, so maybe time to catch up with that, particularly with Russell Tovey on board ....

London theatre update ...

Two interesting new productions coming up, after recently seeing revivals of MOJO in the west end, and the hilarious ONCE A CATHOLIC up in the wilds of Kilburn High Road (see Theatre label). Fascinating to see Angela Lansbury at 88 back on the London stage, in a new production of Noel Coward's BLITHE SPIRIT, which she played a year or two ago on Broadway with Rupert Everett (below), whom we liked here last year as Oscar Wilde in David Hare's THE JUDAS KISS - as per reviews at Theatre label. Madame Arcati is quite a physical role, if not a very big one, as played by Margaret Rutherford in David Lean's perfect film of the play in 1946. 

Angela of course has been a favourite of ours for a long time, as per label, in movies since 1944 - the year before I was born - and must have worked with just about everyone, from being mean to Judy Garland in THE HARVEY GIRLS in 1946, to co-starring with Tracy and Hepburn in STATE OF UNION in 1948, often playing much older than her years. In the '50s she co-starred in programmers with Randolph Scott and Tony Curtis, as well as with Danny Kaye in the still funny THE COURT JESTER, with the Harrisons (Rex and Kay Kendall) in Minnelli's THE RELUCTANT DEBUTANTE in 1958 - a firm favourite here, below - and with Sophia Loren and so many more, with Lee Remick in THE LONG HOT SUMMER in '58, Sondheim's ANYONE CAN WHISTLE in '64 and a tv movie THE GIFT OF LOVE ...then there was her trio of fearsome mothers, to Elvis Presley, Warren Beatty and Brandon de Wilde in another favourite, Frankenheimer's 1962 ALL FALL DOWN, which in turn led to her monster mother of zombie Laurence Harvey in Frankenheimer's enduring classic (no, I didn't want to see the remake) THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE, also 1962. Frankenheimer had to convince Sinatra that she would be right for the role, despite being just 3 years older than Harvey!.

We saw her in London several times in the '70s - At the RSC (Royal Shakespeare Company) in Albee's ALL OVER in 1972, sharing the stage with Peggy Ashcroft as respectively the mistress and wife of a dying tycoon; she also did a GYPSY which I somehow missed, but we saw her at the BFI's National Film Theatre for one of those Q&A afternoon sessions, where she was a big draw. Luckily we got our tickets in time. I am sure everyone will want to see her now in BLITHE SPIRIT. I never watched her MURDER SHE WROTE series at the time, being too young for that kind of stuff and out a lot, but its amusing catching up with them now, if only for the amazing guest stars. She also lived in Ireland for some time - she is a perfect Irish granny in the 2004 film of Colm Toibin's THE BLACKWATER LIGHTSHIP.. We like also her hilarious turn in 1970's SOMETHING FOR EVERYONE, an instant gay classic ! as per reviews at Angela, Michael York, gay interest labels).

Away from the west end, fringe theatre has another interesting offering: a new play at the small space upstairs at the famous Royal Court Theatre in Sloane Square. THE PASS by John Donnelly is about gay footballers who stay in the closet at what cost to themselves  .... a hot potato here, as hardly any main Premier League footballers have come out. It may be rather different for Tom Daley in the more rarified world of swimming and diving.  It has been getting good reviews and may be sold out. I can only see tickets on offer for day release at 9.00am on-line for Mondays, so we will try and get some for sometime in Feburary, it is currently only on until 1 March.

The attraction here is the lead is played by one of our best known out actors, Russell Tovey - one of THE HISTORY BOYS and busy on television (popping up in that new series LOOKING as well). 
It is about two footballers and how they change over 3 acts, also featuring the Tovey character's wife and an eager hotel bellboy. 

 I was last at the Theatre Royal Upstairs back in 1968, when 22, for a gayish production called A GAME CALLED ARTHUR, with another young actor going places - young Timothy Dalton, who in that small space, was right in front of me. He was one of the most stunning men ever - a few months later of course he opened in THE LION IN WINTER.