Posts tagged as:

The Stage

Education by X Factor

August 23, 2009 · 1 comment

in Published articles, Television

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 we don’t see, as the production team select the acts that will get onto the televised stages. It really lays bare how the show takes the notion of the cattle call to real extremes.

[click to continue…]

Tagged as: , , , , ,

{ 1 comment }

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 […]

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 publishing […]

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 be […]

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 […]

New review: Blink!

July 16, 2009

Last night was the press night of Blink! at the Above the Stag theatre in Victoria, a cabaret evening of songs from musicals that flopped — literally, blink and you could have missed them.

My review is now online at The Stage website and has been added to my master index of my theatre reviews.

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 so, […]

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 computer […]

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 television, […]

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 - Live from Las Vegas

NaNoWriMo 2008

November 2, 2008

I’m working on a new draft for this year’s National Novel Writing Month — but there’s no way I’m ever going to make the 50,000 word target for my first draft by the end of the month.

By virtue of my day job, I have to watch a lot of theatre and television, and then write […]

Lee Mead

December 20, 2007

Originally published in the December 20, 2007 issue of The Stage

The winner of BBC1’s Any Dream Will Do, Lee Mead, took to the stage as Joseph - of Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat fame - in July. He talks to Scott Matthewman about becoming the West End’s leading man

“I was quite naive,” admits Lee Mead of his […]

Showpeople: Daniel Boys

September 27, 2007

This interview first appeared in The Stage, September 27, 2007, as promotion for I Love You Because at the Landor Theatre. Read my review

Daniel Boys, who came sixth in the BBC’s talent hunt Any Dream Will Do? will be playing the role of Austin Bennet in the musical I Love You Because, a genderswapped version […]

All about All About My Mother

September 5, 2007

So last night I was at the press night for All About My Mother, the Old Vic’s new adaptation of Pedro Almodovar’s classic film. My review’s online now, and will be in print in next week’s issue of The Stage. In the meantime, the condensed version:

Oh. Dear. God.

It got three stars in the […]

A new chapter

April 5, 2007

This interview originally appeared in the April 5, 2007 issue of The Stage

Executive producer of Doctor Who Julie Gardner tells Scott Matthewman about the changes being made to the show, in front of and behind the camera, including a welcome move to larger production studios

Julie Gardner spends a lot of time on Doctor Who in […]