Arts

Portraits: Terrie-May McNulty

August 6, 2010

Earlier this week, I did a photo shoot with my friend, actor Terrie-May McNulty. She will shortly be performing her one-woman cabaret, Oops!, as part of her fund-raising efforts to further her acting education.

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Hollie Steel at the Roundhouse

Thumbnail image for Hollie Steel at the Roundhouse May 20, 2010

Last night, I went with Paul to the Roundhouse, for the launch of the debut album by 11-year-old Hollie Steel. Hollie was, you may remember, a finalist in the 2009 series of Britain’s Got Talent. As Paul says, she has a tremendous vocal range, but at her young age she doesn’t really have the emotional […]

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Streetdance 3D: two dimensions more than the script

Thumbnail image for Streetdance 3D: two dimensions more than the script May 18, 2010

There is a point at which Carly, the plucky heroine of new British dance movie, Streetdance 3D, is taken to a classical ballet (Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet) by her dance school mentor. Sceptical at first, she finds herself drawn in. As they leave the theatre, she marvels at how they managed to portray an entire […]

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Tracy-Ann Oberman: Playing the diva

April 26, 2010

“I didn’t want to be in this,” admits Tracy-Ann Oberman. “I’d suggested Catherine to the producer, I thought she’d be brilliant. But I didn’t want to be in it at all, so I was a bit nervous when the producer came to me and said Radio 4 would really like me to be.” Oberman is […]

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Such Tweet Sorrow: website-specific theatre that works

April 25, 2010

I have to admit that when I heard a modern day version of Romeo and Juliet was to be ‘staged’ on Twitter, I was sceptical. Not necessarily that it would be possible to play out a series of characters posting online as if they were real — that has been done before. YouTube had lonelygirl15, […]

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UPDATED: Love Never Dies, in more than 140 characters

March 9, 2010

Andrew Lloyd Webber’s latest West End show, Love Never Dies, receives its formal press night tonight, which means that the papers tomorrow will be full of reviews. Over at my place of work we’ll have a special podcast in which I talk about the show with Matt, our reviewer, as well as looking at the […]

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Sherlock Holmes

February 15, 2010

When choosing a film to watch at the local cinema yesterday, there was no way I was going to go and see Valentine’s Day on my own (maybe later, but not on the inappropriately-abbreviated V.D. itself). I’d heard so many dire things about The Wolfman that I’m in no great hurry to put myself through […]

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Six days, five shows, some dancers and a requiem

February 12, 2010

After Monday’s attendance at Richmond Theatre for Lord Arthur Savile’s Crime, this has turned into a theatre-packed week. On Tuesday, I went to the Soho Theatre to review gay theatre legend Bette Bourne being ‘interviewed’ by Mark Ravenhill. The inverted commas are because, although the evening was based on transcripts of interview conversations between the […]

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Speaking of Scott Alan…

February 1, 2010

…as I was in my review of Sunday’s concert, I ought to point out his two CDs are available to buy. If you haven’t heard his works before, the glories of Amazon.co.uk’s MP3 service means that you can hear preview tracks below (edit: doesn’t seem to work on Google Chrome for Mac - see below […]

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Did You Hear About the Morgans?

January 3, 2010

I wasn’t sure whether I would like Did You Hear About the Morgans?, the latest romantic comedy starring Hugh Grant opposite the American actress du jour (in this case, Sarah Jessica Parker). Ultimately, though, it won me over with some winning performances and a script that, for the most part, avoids the syrup that weighs […]

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Panto season again (oh yes, it is)

December 14, 2009

While everybody else is winding down in time for Christmas, every year The Stage offices get busier and busier. The reduced amount of time available to get our end-of-year issues out is compounded by the fact that, for our reviews section, we’re hitting the busiest time of the year. We try and cover as many […]

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Paranormal Activity? Pah. Sarah Greene is scarier

December 1, 2009

Cross-posted to TV Today I saw Paranormal Activity at the cinema this weekend. For those who haven’t yet seen it, or heard about it from the large amounts of online buzz around it, it’s a supernatural film shot on a single video camera (a la The Blair Witch Project). With all the best horror films, […]

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The lights aren’t quite out on Avenue Q

November 19, 2009

As the final part of our Show and Stay theatre quiz prize, Ade and I last night ventured to the Gielgud Theatre to see Avenue Q. We had great seats — pretty near the centre of the Row F stalls — but there were elements of the show we couldn’t see. Nor could anyone else, […]

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And you can quote me on that

October 30, 2009

Over the last week or so, my name’s popped up in a couple of places. Firstly, in Sunday’s Observer I was quoted in a feature on television’s propensity to remake old series. My quote, taken from a much longer conversation, rounded off the article: Scott Matthewman, assistant editor of the trade paper The Stage, who […]

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Quick theatre round-up

October 28, 2009

I know I haven’t been blogging here much lately: these things tend to come in fits and spurts, so I may do some more posts for a bit. That said, it’s coming up to my annual attempt to participate in NaNoWriMo so I may go quiet on the blogging front again. Anyway, over the last […]

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Style guide wars: actress vs female actor

August 24, 2009

It’s such a shame when an injudicious choice of words overshadows the points that someone seeks to make. That’s what happened when, last week, The Guardian’s Hadley Freeman wrote an article for the paper’s G2 section about why Katherine Heigl would executive produce a film like The Ugly Truth after trashing Knocked Up, in which […]

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Education by X Factor

August 23, 2009

Watching this year’s revamped version of The X Factor was an experience. For those who missed it, the “audition room” section of the show has been opened out into a Britain’s Got Talent-style show, complete with highly vocal audience. BBC News reporter Genevieve Hassan detailed her experience of the initial audition stages — the ones […]

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Batman: The Animated Series

August 22, 2009

Recently, I’ve been enjoying a reunion with 1992’s Batman: The Animated Series on DVD. Coming as it did after Tim Burton’s successful two film adaptations, it continued and refined the art deco-meets-high tech world of the big screen world, and combined them with a drawing style which owed a lot to the 1940s Superman cartoons. […]

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Lessons from The Street: We had a bargain, and we forgot

August 18, 2009

Cross-posted on TV Today And so we say goodbye to The Street, Jimmy McGovern’s remarkable series of standalone, but inter-related dramas relating the extraordinary tales of neighbours on the most ordinary of streets. After three years, ITV Studios, which made the BBC-commissioned series, has made so many talented people redundant that McGovern doesn’t want to […]

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Destiny, Death, Delirium and Despair: Drabbles a decade on

August 15, 2009

The beauty of using my blog to keep track of stuff I’ve written elsewhere is that it allows, when time permits, to reflect on the writer I used to be. As I’ve been explaining on Twitter, I usually think that what I wrote in the past is better than what I write now, whether it’s […]

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The dark side of Eurovision bloc voting

August 15, 2009

After years of the concept being stoked by commentator Terry Wogan, pretty much everyone in the UK believes that the contest has been hijacked by ‘bloc voting’, with all the East European states voting for their neighbours, effectively ensuring that the UK entry will always place near the bottom of the finals. There’s an element […]

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Guys, gals and gender-swapping Gershwin

August 12, 2009

Last night, I went with Steve to see The Great American Songbook at the New End Theatre, a concert performance by three singers of classic songs by the Gershwins, Cole Porter, Irving Berlin and more. My review is online on The Stage website now. But on this blog, I want to concentrate on how a […]

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Sunshine and Moon

August 10, 2009

Over the weekend, I saw two British science fiction films for the first time: Sunshine, directed by (the now Oscar-winning) Danny Boyle and Moon, directed by Duncan Jones. I’m not sure why it’s taken me so long to see Sunshine. It’s been out on DVD for ever: my copy was bought a while ago on […]

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This is the end, but was the moment prepared for?

August 9, 2009

A couple of weeks ago, in the regular list of notable radio programmes I prepare each week, I plugged Radio 2’s relay of a recent live performance of Jeff Wayne’s War of the Worlds. That mention spurred me to listen once more to the album. This prog rock opera contains some of the most well-known […]

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Ella sings Rodgers and Hart

August 7, 2009

At the end of my last post about Cadogan Hall’s Rodgers and Hart tribute concert, I said: searching Amazon or iTunes for some Rodgers and Hart numbers would make for a fruitful weekend. Let me help you in that task. The best album of Rodgers and Hart songs is by the peerless Ella Fitzgerald: Amazon.co.uk […]

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Sing For Your Supper, Cadogan Hall

August 7, 2009

On Wednesday night, Paul and I went to Cadogan Hall to see Sing For Your Supper, a concert celebrating the music of Rodgers and Hart. It was my first visit to Cadogan Hall, and to be honest I’m surprised at its use as a venue for this sort of event. The former church’s acoustics just […]

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Building a trailer

August 7, 2009

For the fourth year running, The Stage has joined forces with Ewan Spence and The Podcast Network to produce The Edinburgh Fringe Podcast, a daily podcast covering the best in theatre and comedy from the world’s largest arts festival. The top and tail of each show will include adverts for various parts of The Stage’s […]

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Russell T Davies and Euros Lyn talk Doctor Who and Torchwood

August 3, 2009

Cross-posted to TV Today Over on US TV blog Televisionary, Jace has been interviewing Torchwood and Doctor Who writer/producer Russell T. Davies and director Euros Lyn. After all the Comic-Con madness and the ‘Save Ianto’ hubbub, it’s nice to hear them talk about more general matters regarding both series — and for Euros to get […]

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Last post

July 30, 2009

One of the first poems the new Poet Laureate, Carol Ann Duffy, has published since taking on the post is Last Post, a BBC commission to mark the passings of the last British World War I survivors. You lean against a wall, your several million lives still possible and crammed with love, work, children, talent, […]

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Blink! – the double-take

July 29, 2009

Last night, Paul and I went back to the Above the Stag theatre in Victoria to see Blink!, a revue about songs from musicals that closed early. For both of us it was our second time to see the show, although we’d previously seen it on different nights. My first was on press night, when […]

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Tron 2.0, aka Tr2n, is now Tron Legacy

July 28, 2009

If I was the sort of person who went to conventions, I think Comic-Con San Diego would be the one I would most like to go to. Somehow, over the last few years, it has become a major means of marketing all sorts of genre productions in TV and film to the fans. Anyway, while […]

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Dorian Gray – the teaser trailer

July 27, 2009

Not the Matthew Bourne version, nor indeed the play which continues at Leicester Square Theatre until August 2. No, this is the movie version, with Oscar Wilde’s novel being given the full Hollywood costume drama treatment, starring Ben Barnes, Colin Firth and some truly terrifying hairstyles:

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Ernie, get your gun

July 27, 2009

It appears that I will only have a limited time to catch the new West End musical sensation, Too Close to the Sun, which is to close on August 8. Press night was only on Friday, and word started to trickle through of the closure over the weekend. That’s quick, even for a musical from […]

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Sister Act – the London cast recording

July 27, 2009

I’ve yet to manage to get to see Sister Act, despite having been at the press launch back in February. However, I knew enough about the show, the cats and the creatives to know I wanted the cast recording as soon as it came out. I pre-ordered my copy from iTunes, mainly because the Amazon […]

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The tryanny of the canon

July 26, 2009

Via Stuart, I’ve spent the last half hour reading a long and eloquent piece about the concept of show ‘canonicity’, with special attention to the concept around a show like Doctor Who: We’ve moved from a canon which didn’t exist because nobody got round to establishing one, to a canon which doesn’t exist because the […]

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Torchwood, Ianto and fandom’s big heart

July 25, 2009

Spoiler warning: Don’t read further if you have not yet seen episode 4 of Torchwood: Children of Earth. Of course, if you want to watch it, chances are you already have, but still… Fans of any persuasion can be an odd bunch. I know, I am that person. There are so many huge benefits to […]

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A photoshoot for Edinburgh

July 24, 2009

Yesterday, The Stage undertook the photoshoot for its annual Edinburgh Festivals issue. We’ll have ten ‘acts’, for want of a better word — actually, it’s seven actors, one cabaret duo, one writer and one director — who were photographed separately, as well as in a group shot that will be used on the cover. Organised […]

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Jerusalem at the Royal Court

July 23, 2009

On Tuesday, I went along to the Royal Court to accompany the lovely Anna to see Jerusalem by Jez Butterworth. I was going to write up a review here, but there seems little point, as Anna’s sums it up so brilliantly: Byron, then, would be a gift to any actor, but few could inhabit him […]

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The Young Victoria

July 18, 2009

I must admit, I haven’t seen The Young Victoria on DVD yet, but I did see it at a press screening prior to its cinematic launch, as preparation for interviewing Jack Murphy, the movement director who choreographed the pivotal waltz scene in the film. It’s a really good period drama, with a script by Julian […]

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Torchwood: Children of Earth music

July 18, 2009

After a week of Torchwood-related content, I’m still bowled over by the quality of the finished product. While I liked the first two series, I loved Children of Earth. One reason (among many) was Ben Foster’s incidental music - which is now available to buy. And, if I’ve got my HTML right, you should be […]

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Pussy problems, part 2

July 9, 2009

As well as writing up the problems with Stuart Jeffries’ factually incorrect G2 article yesterday, I wrote to the letters page of the Guardian to complain. They have chosen not to publish that letter, but instead have included some discussion of the matter in their regular Corrections & Clarifications column: A G2 article called the […]

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Stuart Jeffries’ pussy problems

July 8, 2009

Stuart Jeffries’ book about television nostalgia, Mrs Slocombe’s Pussy, is a great read. And so it’s really disappointing when he gets it so, so wrong. After the sad passing of Mollie Sugden, best known for her role as Mrs. Slocombe in 1970s TV sitcom Are You Being Served?, a number of people paid tribute on […]

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Holmes v Sunday Times: WTF?

July 5, 2009

Something really bizarre seems to have happened to a column penned by comedian Jon Holmes, BBC 6Music DJ and regular contributor to Radio 4’s The Now Show. As can be seen in the Twitter post above, Holmes has provided a link to the original document on his website, and the version that has been published […]

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The Torchwood experience

July 3, 2009

It’s been a busy week over at TV Today, where we’ve been running a series of features around Torchwood: Children of Earth, which begins a five-episode run on Monday and continues throughout the week. The stripped scheduling is a tactic BBC1 has been using in increasing amounts, to create a buzz, or “event television”. And […]

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West End Live 2009

June 23, 2009

On Saturday, I went to Leicester Square to see some of the onstage performances put together by Westminster City Countil as part of the annual West End Live event. Due to engineering works on train lines, and the long queueing time to get into the Leicester Square stage area, I missed performances by the cast […]

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It’s nice to be noticed

June 6, 2009

A pleasant surprise to see this status on Twitter this morning from the BBC Radio 4 blog: I’ve been doing weekly radio previews for a while now as part of the Turn off the TV section of our TV blog. Infuriatingly, this week’s has been, I think, one of the weakest: not helped by a […]

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Won’t somebody think of the children – instead of just blaming the broadcasters?

May 14, 2009

Previously posted on TV Today Every morning when I get into work, I find an inbox crawling with press releases, most of which are of little to no interest either to me directly or even to The Stage as a whole. This morning, I did see one which deserved additional reading, as it covered children’s […]

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Successful mission

February 19, 2009

This article first appeared in the February 19, 2009 issue of The Stage Jon Cassar, executive producer of hit US series 24, tells Scott Matthewman about how the writers’ strike affected the show, how it mirrors current affairs and its future When it first hit the air in November 2001, Fox Broadcasting’s 24 quickly established […]

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Menken serenade

February 4, 2009

Tonight, I was lucky enough to be invited to the press launch of Sister Act: the Musical, which starts previews in May at the London Palladium after The Sound of Music leaves the West End to tour the UK. A lot of the usual PR guff — how wonderful an opportunity it is, how great […]

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Vlog #1: On Twilight and mortality angst

January 4, 2009
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2008′s panto reviews

December 22, 2008

Only three to do this year (four if you count an additional Christmas-themed show). And now they’re all done and available online, so the holiday starts here! 09/12/08: Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Elgiva, Chesham 17/12/08: Cinderella, Civic Centre Aylesbury 22/12/08: Aladdin,Watersmeet, Rickmansworth And the additional Christmas show: 19/12/08: Christmas with the Rat Pack […]

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