Amusing theatrical fossil Jonathan Miller has been in the papers this week, attacking West End theatre producers for their ‘obsession with celebrity’, after they chose to go with David Tennant and Jude Law for two forthcoming productions of Hamlet, instead of his latest protégé.
Commentators have focussed on his snooty dismissal of Tennant as "That man from Doctor Who", and overlooked the fact that Miller is, of course, completely right. If you can’t make an Event of a production, then your show is pretty much doomed. If you want a hit on your hands, you either need a Doctor Who star (Hamlet, Treats, Under the Blue Sky) or to break some major sexual taboos (Blackbird and That Face, for example, which consisted entirely of characters screaming at each other as if they were in a nightmarishly extended Eastenders family scene, but still pulled in the crowds with their whiffs of incest and paedophilia).
But everybody knows whose fault this is, and it’s not "celebrity obsessed" producers or audiences. It’s Jonathan Miller, and all the other critics, directors, actors and assorted Groucho Club regulars who spent the entire 80s and 90s whinging about the lack of subsidies for theatre. They finally got their money a decade ago, and the result is that you’d have to be completely insane to watch a serious play in the West End.
Gloomy edifices like the Palace Theatre feel like sets in some site-specific Victorian nightmare play, rather than places intended for public enjoyment. Bottlenecks in the crowds mean that by the time you’ve left your seat in the interval, you’re obliged to go back in. Low-ceilinged corridors and Grade I listed plumbing ensure that there’s a lingering smell of toilets in all public spaces. And the tickets cost about fifty quid. Who on Earth is going to put up with that unless there's a Hollywood star and at least ten song-and-dance numbers?
Compare this with a trip to the National Theatre, the Young Vic, the Menier, or any of the other Lottery-funded venues, and you’ll see why nobody goes to see drama in the West End. Chic bar areas, beautiful restaurants, riverside terraces for the smokers, free music, and the chance to spot crusty old celebs like Jonathan Miller sipping gin and tonics and saying how Chekhov was much gloomier back in his day. It all adds up to a far superior experience. For a tenner, if you book at the right time.
So if Miller wants to rescue his beloved West End from musical remakes of classic movies (woo!), jukebox shows based on clapped-out boybands (yay!), and Jude Law (phwooar!), then he’s going to have to accept the closure of his beloved National. Or just stop moaning, and enjoy the most brilliantly varied theatrical city in the world.
You’re Hired!
As if we’re not all still reeling from our great city being run by an over-sized public schoolboy (yes, Boris, that’s you), Labour must feel that they have to do something…anything to overshadow Ken’s defeat. And they have! There have been some mutterings that Sir Alan Sugar could be asked to stand in the 2012 elections – maybe Ken just wasn’t quite controversial enough and some well-timed bursts of ‘You’re fired’ reverberating around City Hall will provide the edge Labour needs.
Up, Up and Away!
If you happen to see a 75 metre-long white bubble floating above the Thames out of the corner of your eye, aliens are not arriving in London. It’s just a German airship. It’s certainly one way of seeing the sights with an hour-long flight taking passengers from the airfield in Upminster over to Buckingham Palace and back, but there’s only a small window of opportunity to climb aboard in July and August as the airship can’t fly in bad weather. And we thought the Tube was unreliable!
You can’t judge a book by its cover anymore…
Gone are the days of spending hours browsing bookshelves for the right tome to take on your summer hols. Soon, it could be rather like going into Starbucks and ordering a coffee. The aptly-named Espresso Book Machine does exactly what it says on the tin – it prints books in seven minutes (okay, not quite as quick as a skinny latte!) – and it could be coming to a Blackwell bookshop near you. With the penchant nowadays for putting coffee shops in bookstores, it could be a case of ‘Espresso or War and Peace, madam?’
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