So what do you do when you have a birthday coming up that you just can not face? Simple.. don't spend it in London. It doesn't happen then - any fule kno that.

So Easter weekend found Owen and I in Barcelona, my favourite European city. It has been a few years since we had been so it was nice to see old favourites and make some new discoveries too.
We flew out on Good Friday with a BA flight which was serviced by Iberian - which is Spanish for naff - but it's a short flight and despite a lengthier-than-usual taxi ride we were back at the charming small hotel H10 Raco del Pi, though sadly not in one of the large rooms at the front. But then that only encourages you not to linger and get out and start to explore.

Saturday started sunny but the rain came on as we queued for tour tickets for the Palau de la Musica Catalana, the famous concert hall which opened in 1908. Everytime I have visited the city before the advance tickets to see inside Lluis Domenech i Montaner's lovely building have sold out so it was my first point-of-call this time. There were a few tickets free for the 1pm so we decided to go for it.
The guided tour lasts about 50 minutes and is a great way to learn the history of it's conception and building as well as explaining the many telling details around the building celebrating Catalan culture and motifs. I immediately wanted to return to see a concert there - just for the experience of seeing the lovely auditorium come to life.

The sun had appeared by the time we came out and we took our place outside with the other visitors trying to find the best angle to photograph the lovely mosaic facade in the cramped street outside!

After a visit to the lovely Cafe d'Estiu which is a favourite place for tea and a chew, we headed down the Ramblas, along Carrer Ferran and down to Owen's favourite ceramic shop just down from the Picasso museum. After buying some much-needed 'things' bowls we stopped off at another favourite chewerie La Princesa 23 for our first bottle of Cava and a much-needed meal. Then back to the hotel to drop off the purchases and freshen up for dinner. The taste-buds are all go in Barcelona...

We went to a great 1st floor restaurant on La Ramblas called Attic, it's run by the same group as our favourite restaurant Citrus so we thought we'd explore. I detected a bit of an eastern vibe going on with a Japanese style design but they had a great menu and I loved the idea of chromatic deserts.... red, yellow, green, white etc. I think we will definitely go back.

I heard yesterday of the passing of Beatrice Arthur with a lot of sadness.

During it's heyday THE GOLDEN GIRLS was one of my favourite shows and the caustic, biting put-downs of Dorothy were always the highlights of any show.

With mastery of pace and timing she delivered her withering insults with matchless precision.

Here are some of her best - including the second one which is still one of my all-time favourites...

While I was away in Barcelona for Easter/birthday - yes I will blog soon! - British cinema lost two distinctive producers.

Peter Rogers is known for producing all the Carry On series and Simon Channing Williams who in an illustrious career produced all Mike Leigh's films from HIGH HOPES to HAPPY GO LUCKY.

Two distinctive strands of film-making but both men believed in their films as well as the industry and have both left a legacy of popular cinema.

Sometimes a theatre production can have everything going for it: the cast are on message and off the book, the pacing is fine, the production design gets you into the world of the characters and the ambient elements help conjure a mood.

All well and good. But sometimes all this can be used by a director to cover up the inadequacies of a text and then sadly all the good work can be seen clearly to be sumptuous wrapping paper for a gift you not only had once but have sold already on eBay.

Such is the case with the third of the Donmar's season at the Wyndhams, Yukio Mishima's MADAME DE SADE. While not the train wreck that some of the reviews would have you believe, Michael Grandage's production is a good example that you can't make a silk purse out of sow's ear - no matter how much material your designer has to hand.

The play concerns five women whose lives are directly affected by the notorious Marquise de Sade - his wife and her sister, her mother, a childhood friend and a notorious courtesan. While these women's lives are thrown into conflict by his actions, a maid moves silently through the room, her time fast approaching to have her own voice heard.Okay I'll get the worst over with now. As my Japanese isn't quite up to speed, it is hard to know if I should place the blame at Mishima's door or the absurdly wordy translation by Donald Keene - so I'll split it between them. Mishima wrote his play in the style of Racine who's formalist structure no doubt appealed to his grounding in the ritualistic Japanese theatre but when Racine's tortured heroines give vent to their desires in speeches it is with a passion that breaks through the formalism and keeps you hooked on their dilemma.

But in Keene's unrelentingly verbose translation, de Sade's women talk, and speechify, and make statements about offstage exploits. None of the women change because of these speeches, it's almost as if the characters aren't interacting - just speaking out to the audience. It would help if the endless yap actually kept the plot going but I was constantly confused about where the elusive de Sade was at any given time. It would be ok if the speeches were worth listening to... but the words keep coming, again and again and it is up to the individual actresses to give them the light and shade that the text denies them. Sadly the other problem I have with the production is that the astonishingly average Rosamund Pike is playing the pivotal role of Madame de Sade.

She has the most of the speeches but with the least vocal ability of any of the actresses. Throughout the play she has speech after speech on why she refuses to leave her dissolute husband which are delivered in a stately monotone. At the - um - climax of the play, Madame de Sade announces that she is entering a convent rather than see her husband now he is released from prison. Her final speech - which is surely what the whole play has been leading to - is delivered in the same monotone only with the volume turned up LOUD. To think in about ten years she will be giving us her Cleopatra, her Mrs. Alving... what a scary thought.So an annoying lead(en) performance and a dreary translation. But this was like an awful cake with fantastic thick tasty icing so let's start picking! First off, Grandage's production was an hour and 45 with no interval so luckily moved at a steady pace. Christopher Oram's sumptuous set conjours up Madame de Montreuil's salon, a glittering room of gilt and mirrors. As the text gives little to move the viewer, you are helped immensely by Neil Austin's subtle shifting lighting cues, Adam Cork's unsettling soundscapes and Lorna Heavey's flickering video images on the salon's walls. Oram's extravagant costumes adds to the visual splendour.

Apart from the unbending Pike, the other five actresses in the cast grasp their moments and give performances that shine amid the opulent surroundings.

Judi Dench is to be applauded for adding her box-office appeal to such a non-west end play and makes bricks from the Mishima hay as Madame de Montreuil is given little to do but sweep around the stage in various shades of outraged morality and motherly anguish. That she transcends this to suggest a woman whose moral certainty is slowly eroded is to her credit. The audience - no doubt Denchites to the end - seized any chance to laugh at her every cutting, exasperated, withering remark. The fact that she hadn't said anything remotely funny obviously never crossed their minds.Fiona Button has a nice teasing quality which she utilises to good effect as Madame de Sade's younger sister Anne who is more than happy to be deflowered by her brother-in-law. Deborah Findlay - one of my favourite actresses - plays the devout Baronesse de Semiane, once a childhood friend of de Sade, who refuses to believe the excesses of her former playmate and who of course ends up as a nun!
Jenny Galloway turns in another notable supporting performance as Charlotte, the seemingly docile attentive maid who, at the end of the play, has become a scowling member of the now-dominant sans-coulottes, bristling with class hatred in a nice scene where she fronts it out with Dench.

And finally there is the delicious, delirious Frances Barber as a notorious aristocractic nympho. I suspect the audience were with me in hoping that every time the large doors of the salon were opened that she would again sweep on and give the play the much-needed kick in the arse it needed.

Actually make that a whip across the arse as the opening scene - which raises expectations of a good play - involves Barber's Comtesse de Saint-Fond lasciviously describing to Findley's shocked but curious Baronesse exactly what de Sade got up to with a couple of whores and his valet in a hotel room in Marseilles, all punctuated with cracks from her riding crop against her volumous train.
Her second appearance (in a towering wig) gives her another lipsmacking speech about being used as an altar during a black mass which is pure purple prose but is made bearable by her purring, husky, sandpaper-in-velvet delivery. To paraphrase Groucho Marx, her scene-stealing is the biggest robbery since Brinks - but thank God she's there!

Most of the time I sat there imagining I was actually watching a revival of Christopher Hampton's majestic LES LIAISONS DANGEREUSES with Frances Barber as the Marquise de Merteuil, Judi Danch as Madame de Rosemonde, Deborah Findley as Madame de Volanges and Fiona Button as Cecile. Ah well... I can dream.

Oh.
My.
God.

When Effie's collide! There ain't no hiding place. They are singing Out.

On Thursday night I went with Owen to see the latest addition to the dvd shelf that the West End theatre is becoming - PRISCILLA QUEEN OF THE DESERT: THE MUSICAL (like it would be anything else).
If you are going to plop a known film onto a stage then you have to make it at least theatrical, and PRISCILLA is certainly that... indeed it never stops thrusting it's theatricality at you! Within seconds of opening, a less-Greek, more-Studio 54 chorus descend from the flies to belt out DOWNTOWN, for no better reason than to give you the idea that the show opens in a city.

The touring bus Priscilla appears to much applause and rotates the stage slowly to a continued round of boffo mit-pounding (as Variety was wont to say). However what it very soon reminded me of was the huge ship in MUTINY! at the Piccadilly which although initially magnificent when first viewed ultimately did nothing than go up and down and round and round! As my dear close personal friend Miss Nicola Blackman who appeared in the show said "It's all very impressive but does it make the tea?" No it didn't and neither did the bus.
I have a major problem with the whole deal in that I have never really liked the film. I loved Terence Stamp's touching performance as the trans-sexual Bernadette and the film's soundtrack is a continued delight but the film's sheer ugliness - the camera forever too close to gurning, over-made up, sweaty faces - put it in the same box as MURIEL'S WEDDING, MOULIN ROUGE and STRICTLY BALLROOM, Australian films that have a fascination in over-acting 'baddies', overdoing the ugliness. The script also has no place for women - they are either a bland cypher as in the hero's former wife or a misogynist's dream of ugly, crass harpies.
Not much has been added to the stage adaptation apart from a random selection of mostly disco classics which are forced into the storyline to make the show move along - apropos DOWNTOWN - as a sort of lazy shorthand. For absolutely no reason the wife sings BOOGIE WONDERLAND towards the end for no other reason than to give her and the punters of her casino a song - what... I'M EVERY WOMAN wasn't available? Not that the audience seemed to mind, from the opening chords they happily clapped along with anything, like the most enthusiastic ice-skating audience.
The main problem I had with the show was that despite various attempts to get the tearducts working overtime, the one thing the creator's forgot to throw into the mix was some genuine warmth. There is no humanity in the show, just a synthetic feel-good factor. You only have to compare the show with LA CAGE AUX FOLLES at the Playhouse - which contains as many obvious 'bum' gags - but which also takes the time to let you understand the characters and feel a genuine sympathy for them. But then it also has the added bonus of a score that is written with those characters in mind. Maybe if the PRISCILLA team had bothered to write some original songs rather than hitting the disco playlist on their collective ipods...

I also had a problem with the production which is pitched more for the Wembley Arena than the Palace. I must admit - the moment where Adam is projected out into the auditorium on the big slingback on the top of the bus miming to SEMPRE LIBERA from "La Traviata" is wonderful.
The performances are all average to good - Jason Donovan while missing out on any of the depth Hugo Weaving could bring to the character of 'Tick' was agreeable enough and Oliver Thornton as 'Adam' was okay - I just hate the character.

It is a measure of how good a musical actor he is that Clive Carter managed to convey the heart of the lovelorn outback handyman "Bob" despite a wandering accent and there was a nice supporting turn from Kanako Nakano - how's that for a name - as Cynthia, Bob's bored Vietnamese wife with the eye-popping bar-room act. Zoe Birkett shows there is life in X Factor's alumni as the lead omnipresent floating diva and the supporting company give off enough busy energy.

The star bow is for Tony Sheldon who, despite playing the role of 'Bernadette' for two and 1/2 years since it's original Australian premiere, still manages to give the best and freshest performance.

It is a peach of a part with all the best lines and although Sheldon does nothing to disturb memories of Terence Stamp in the role, he still siezes his opportunities to steal the show.

The show is also worth seeing for the outrageous costumes from Tim Chappel & Lizzy Gardiner recreating their originals from the film and adding to them with the over-the-top production numbers.

So there you go... I have spent worse nights in the theatre. LES MISERABLES at the same theatre for one... oh, that was an afternoon matinee but you get my drift.

For me? How kind of you.
I presume it IS to celebrate my big ol' birthday on Sunday that Carole King has flown to London - she says it's to promote the big re-release of TAPESTRY and her new dvd but I know better.

If I tell her it's my birthday all year we might get her to play a London concert... I would love to see her live.

The Pet Shop Boys released their magnificent YES album recently.

Eleven great songs, magnificently sequenced into a seamless, wonderful journey into pop.

It initially charted at #4, their highest album chart entry since 1996.

This week it went down to #21.

I don't understand the music world anymore.

On Friday I met up with Owen, Sharon and Eamonn and after a nice Italian meal we headed for the Gielgud Theatre where Sharon & Eamonn were treating us to a birthday gift of seeing Alan Bennett's 1980 play ENJOY. The original production starred Joan Plowright and Colin Blakeley with a supporting cast including Susan Littler and Liz Smith but only lasted 7 weeks. This revival stars Alison Steadman and David Troughton as 'Mam' and 'Dad' who occasionally call each other by their real names of Connie and Wilfred. They have lived all their married life in the same back-to-back house in Leeds and together occupy that private hell of querulous married life.

Connie is slowly losing her memory which is driving Wilf to distraction. They share the house with their tough-as-nails daughter Linda who anyone with half an eye could see has a baser career than being a company secretary but whom Wilf idolises. Connie lingers over memories of a vanished son who was driven out years ago for an unnamed but fairly obvious moral transgression.
Connie and Wilf are awaiting being re-housed in a new maisonette but are visited instead by the mysterious 'Ms. Craig', a silent social worker sent by the council to silently observe their 'everyday' actions to make sure the council is aware of all their needs. 'Ms. Craig' - who everyone must surely know the real identity of - silently watches as each of them lays bare the state of their marriage and their lives as well as watching Linda having sex on the living room carpet.

The second half shows how surprisingly contemporary the play feels with the appearance of subsequent characters - the local yob and the domineering next-door neighbour - who are all followed by their own observer, well dressed office-type Big Brothers who simply record what is happening and do not get involved even when the yob beats up Wilf or Connie and the neighbour attempt to discover whether Wilf's erection proves he is dead or alive. The denouement is even more Orwellian - Connie and Wilf will be re-housed - but in their own house which is going to be dismantled and reassembled in a heritage theme park and where they will live out their days as exhibits.

On the whole I enjoyed it but felt Bennett's ambition didn't quite manage to translate into a good overall play. I certainly enjoyed all of his social commentary and the slow dessication of Connie and Wilf's lives but Bennett's view is always so insular that I was desperate for a breath of fresh air to get out of his voyeuristic view on shut-in lives. At times the writing reminded me of Orton in dotage - all the characters love to talk in ways they feel will impress, speaking phrases as if quoting them verbatim from articles read in colour supplements.

Alison Steadman was a marvellous Connie, beautifully observed and seemingly channelling Thora Hird. Her Connie was Kath from ENTERTAINING MR. SLOANE approaching senility as well as an early sketch for his "Talking Heads" play A CREAM CRACKER UNDER THE SOFA. Alison Steadman perfectly captured the humour in Connie as well as the tragedy of a woman sinking into memory loss.

She was matched by a great performance of frustrated anguish from David Troughton. His Wilfred is a bully, a misogynist and as we find out later an incestuous father but Troughton made him into a believable character as much stranded at the end of the play as Connie but given a lease of life by a view from a hospital window.

The supporting performances hardly matched their fine work with overblown brassy performances from Josie Walker as the cold-eyed prostitute daughter and Carol Gillespie as the bossy neighbour. It made me wonder how these roles were played in the original production by the late Susan Littler and Liz Smith. Both I feel would have brought some much needed shading to the parts. Only in her last scene did Walker vary the EMMERDALE trampy act, suggesting a wounded soul beneath the otherwise two dimensional caricature.

Christopher Luscombe's direction became a bit unfocused at the end leaving the play to drift off rather than hit home but Janet Bird's design was a constant source of pleasure. In the end I found it a funny, haunting play which could have done with a stronger overall vision.

Here we are... April my favourite month. A birthday and - usually - nicer weather. This birthday is one of those big ticket ones so here is a special Motown Hero pic.

When Diana Ross left The Supremes, Motown boasted they now had two hit acts. However very soon afterwards Mary Wilson realised that they were giving negligible support to them. The fans however were made of a more constant metal.

The hits kept coming UP THE LADDER TO THE ROOF, STONED LOVE, NATHAN JONES, FLOY JOY and the last flowering of success BAD WEATHER. They also had success singing with The Four Tops.

Between 1970 - 1973 The Supremes were led by Jean Terrell who I remember Disc saying had "X rated vocals" - she certainly had them! The Supremes finally hung up their gowns in 1977 and left a collection of under-valued recordings.

This line-up (left to right) Cindy Birdsong, Jean Terrell and Mary Wilson, will always be *my* Supremes. I badgered my Ma to get tickets to see them in 1971 when they played the Hammersmith Odeon and I ended up seeing them twice there as well as when they were surprise special guests when we saw The Four Tops at the Albert Hall.

Here's to the supreme Supremes....

At the weekend Owen and I went to the always-delightful Brixton Ritzy to see Zack Snyder's film WATCHMEN.

I will happily put my hand up and say I knew nothing about it other than what I had heard about it during it's long journey to the screen when it changed hands more times than a scruffy pound note. Three days later I still have no idea whether I liked it or not!

For fellow non-Watchman-believers the action takes place in a parallel universe America where during WWII a group of lawmakers masqueraded as The Minutemen, a group who donned Superhero outfits and fought crime. They are superseded by the Watchmen who fall foul of a ban on vigilantes and are broken up just as some of the original Minutemen are found dead or go insane.It's 1985, Richard Nixon is still President and America won the Vietnam War, largely thanks to the atomic power of Dr. Manhattan, a scientist who thanks to an accident in a laboratory was left with superhuman powers of molecular structure. America and Russia are on a nuclear collision course and New York is descending into chaos. When former Minuteman The Comedian is murdered, former Watchman Rorschach decides to investigate with the help of his former crime-fighting friends who are all discovering that life outside the mask is a difficult and dangerous place. First what I liked - the whole look of the film was remarkable, the opening credits excellently set up the film with it's retro 1940s look slowly morphing into a more modern look and there is always something to catch your eye and keep you watching. I also liked the post-911 feel of the film - here is an America devoid of hope and riddled with a gnawing fear that greater powers are at force against the peace of the world.
There are fine performances from Patrick Wilson as the former Wise Owl II, now a bit of a shy schlub who feels lost in the post-superhero world, Jackie Earle Haley is great as Rorschache, a film noir-style investigator whose ever-moving inked mask covers a tortured soul with scary capabilities, Billy Crudup shone (literally) as Dr. Manhattan, a super-human being who still feels the tug of humanity and Carla Gugino was fine - despite the dodgy 'old' makeover - as the boozy former crime-fighter Silk Spectre whose daughter carries on the name. But for every thing I enjoyed there seemed to be things that kept getting in the way. The film is way too long and although impressive, the look of the film is totally claustrophobic - I presume a lot of it is totally based on the look of the original book and one ultimately begs for something original, off the cuff, unplanned. The literal bone-crunching violence even made me wince a few times and felt absurdly gratuitous at times and apart from the performances mentioned, most made no impression and in particular Matthew Goode turned in a resoundingly invisible performance - laughable when he is the catalyst for the film's denouement.

Just to keep you up to speed Constant Reader...

Today I e-mailed my 124th job application in nine months of looking.

It's enough to make a lesser Supermodel go postal...

O happy day...Clicky on the picture to see a new video from Miss Beverley Knight telling her bizness...

A new album on her own label out later in the year and a tour.

Eeek!!

You celebs these days... bunch of wusses.

In 1960 the Amazonian Swedish actress Anita Ekberg confronted the paparazzi outside her Italian villa - with a bow and arrow!

She demanded the films out of the camera which turned out to be blank but all the same... that's the way to see them off!

Sad to report the death of Funk Brother Uriel Jones aged 74.

Among the stone Motown classics Uriel played the drums on were both the Marvin Gaye/Tammi Terrell and Diana Ross versions of AIN'T NO MOUNTAIN HIGH ENOUGH - Smokey Robinson & The Miracles' I SECOND THAT EMOTION - The Temptations' CLOUD NINE and Marvin Gaye's I HEARD IT THROUGH THE GRAPEVINE.

I was lucky to see Uriel when The Funk Brothers played the Festival Hall in 2004 after they were given the fame that was overdue through STANDING IN THE SHADOW OF MOTOWN and it was a truly emotional night to see the men who made so much musical magic.

Recently I pointed out how the theatre marquees of London and Broadway are turning into large illuminated video shelves with wave after wave of screen-to-stage adaptations and jokingly wondered when the musical of PERSONA would be turning up.

Well while we wait... how about a stage adaptation of Nikita Mikhalkov's 1994 film BURNT BY THE SUN which won the Best Foreign Language Academy Award? Why not I said and went with Owen last night to see Howard Davies' production at the Lyttleton.

For such a film where the dreamlike visuals are primarily what one remembers, Peter Flannery has transferred it well to the stage. Indeed the start is reminiscent of Chekhov with a family seated around a veranda table mildly squabbling - and of course addressing each other by their full names "Now Irena Irenavanovich...". How short Russian plays would be if they didn't do that!

It's an interesting way to start as these are indeed Chekhov's people but we soon find out that times have changed. It's 1936, the revolution, Tsar Nicholas and Lenin are history and a glorious world awaits the people under Stalin. What we know (thanks to the programme) but they don't is that he is about to initiate his reign of terror when he scythed down his rivals in the higher echelons of The Party before starting on the populace.
We are in the dacha of General Sergei Kotov - a Revolutionary general whose name still strikes awe in soldier and populace alike and who boasts of having Stalin's private number in the Kremlin. He lives there with his younger wife Maroussia and little daughter Nadia as well as playing host to his in-laws: mother-in-law, grandmother, grandmother's best friend, the best friend's son and and Maroussia's maternal great-uncle, all of whom cling to their vanished past when they were part of the cultural elite, much to Kotov's frustration. They have a reason though... it is their old home.

On a long drowsy summer day the family members are surprised when a disruptive old tramp who invades the home is none other than Mitya, a young former friend of the family who vanished from their lives years ago. The joyful reunion though is fraught with tension as Mitya makes no attempt to hide his bitterness at Maroussia for marrying the older man. But as the long day closes Mitya's real reason for returning is revealed.As with every production of his, Howard Davies' direction is slowly methodical, no peaks or troughs, trusting to the material and performers to generate the tension required. The sexual tension is certainly there among the three lead characters, finally released in an explosive scene where Mitya performs a cocky tap-dance learned while in Paris only to be answered in kind by Kotov's stamping peasant dance learned in the army.

The solid cast all contribute to a seamless ensemble - the family members include Anna Carteret, Rowena Cooper, Tim McMullan and Duncan Bell who all suggest lives of stifled happiness. There are also telling performances from Stephanie Jacob as the family's put-upon maid and Tony Turner as a truck driver who has lost his way. For a brief moment they start the flowering of a friendship but the truck driver is also synonymous with the Russian people, cluelessly lost and heading for disaster.

The major annoyance of the evening was the absence of Ciaran Hinds as Kotov.

No don't mind me, Mr. Hinds you take that night off. I can only hope his absence was due to his possibly being at Natasha Richardson's funeral as they starred on Broadway together. Anyway Kotov was played by Colin Haigh who actually reminded me a lot of Colin Blakely - especially as Stalin in RED MONARCH. He was ok in the role but I can imagine Hinds dominating the stage as befits the character's magnetism.
The role of Marussia was played quite marvellously by Michelle Dockery, how to describe her? Imagine a Keira Knightley who can act. It is a difficult part to play as for most of the time she simply has to react to Mitya's relentless goading but she conveyed a woman torn by feelings of doubt and frustration very well. In the film it is revealed that the character vanished into the Gulags and you can imagine Dockery's tragically wilful Marussia suffering such a fate.

With the absence of Mr. Hinds Rory Kinnear dominated the play with his firey, kinetic performance as Mitya. It would have been nice to see him colliding with a more immovable object than Haigh's Kotov but it's so rare these days to see an actor who can 'play out' as well as Kinnear can. It's a strange role as half the time Mitya is infuriating with his sudden manic bursts of energy and unreasonable demands on Marussia's fidelity but as the play progresses Rory Kinnear perfectly captured the quick flashes of the character's own painful betrayal before revealing his true mission to the house.

The ending shared the film's tragi-comic air of impeding doom delayed by the family's unwitting interference but was also hampered by the need to have a dramatic full-stop whereas Mikhalkov's film ended with a series of haunting images.

It's a film I think I would like to seek out again.

Constant Reader I have been remiss in keeping you up to snuff on my latest theatre visit.

On Wednesday Owen and I took advantage of a lastminute.com offer of cheapo seats to see PLAGUE OVER ENGLAND at the Fortune Theatre written by Evening Standard theatre critic Nicholas de Jongh.

We were at the end of the 4th row and when I stood up in the interval and turned and saw a mass of red velvet seats, I realised why ours were discounted so much.

It's a shame if it is not finding an audience as it's a well-written play with some enjoyable performances. I suspect the subject matter might not be your standard Avenue fare telling as it does of the 1953 arrest of Sir John Gielgud in a gents lav off the Fulham Road. I had a vague knowledge of the incident so it was good to find out what really happened.

1953, John Gielgud has recently been knighted and is in rehearsals for a new play by the then-fashionable N.C. Hunter called A DAY BY THE SEA with Sybil Thorndike, Ralph Richardson and Irene Worth. It is also a period when it was a dangerous time to be a homosexual with heightened press hysteria spurring on police and politicians to be seen to be doing something about this "plague over England".
After a night on the town he stops off at a cottage off the Fulham Road and after responding to the wink from a young guy at the urinals he goes over - a big mistake as this is a plainclothes policeman who arrests him for "persistently importuning for immoral purposes" - the catch-all accusation used for arrested men.

He is relieved the desk sergeant gives him an early court slot to stop the wider public finding out but soon finds out the police have tipped off the Evening Standard as his arrest makes front page news in the lunchtime edition. John is then confronted with the possibility of losing all he has worked for and facing a public humiliation on his opening night.
As has become theatrical history, on his first entrance during the play he was cheered to the rafters. However he had come close to losing the backing of the producer 'Binkie' Beaumont, himself a known homosexual. The play ends in 1975 with Gielgud ruefully acknowledging that he can now portray an obvious gay character on stage in a new Pinter play.

I enjoyed the play and found it illuminating on this period of gay history. de Jongh has an ear for theatrical cattiness and tells his story well with an eye to the outer world as well as the west end. There are two problems I had with the play however - to balance the Gielgud story he has two subplots of young gay men finding out that love is hard to find in the legendary twilight world of the homosexual which are fairly predictable and give the impression that no gay man ever found happiness back then. He also rather muffs the end of the play, bypassing a good opportunity for a closing scene with Gielgud sharing a drink with his critic friend who he secretly loved when they were younger - instead opting for a long and fairly pointless scene where Gielgud returns to the gents on it's last day of opening. It seemed to be striving for a profundity which isn't really there. Director Tamara Harvey could have shaped this better.
de Jongh does however provide a marvellous role for Michael Feast as John Gielgud, who in turn gives a remarkable performance. He captures Gielgud's hauteur, his ramrod posture and the whinnying unique voice but he also portrays a man suddenly facing a world of rejection and shame with touching grace-notes. Michael Feast is the perfect actor for this role - he appeared with Gielgud in NO MAN'S LAND, the same play the onstage Gielgud accepts at the conclusion.

Feast is supported by a trio of winning performances: Celia Imrie as a loving and supportive Sybil Thorndike as well as a louche theatrical owner of a gay private club; Simon Dutton as a cagey, slippery 'Binkie' Beaumont and David Burt in a succession of roles but primarily as the attendent in the gents who brings to this insubstantial role a suggested world of stunted loneliness.

Hugh Ross also scores with his cameo of a brisk-mannered doctor happy to give gay men electric shock therapy to 'cure' them. The other actors are all fine but are hampered by having to double-up roles - one has to play a gay American cruiser who dashes off to reappear as the inspector in charge of the entrapement. Just one more actor in the cast would have helped. A special mention to Alex Marker for his standing set which easily suggests a Victorian gents, a dressing room or Westminster flat.

I recommend PLAGUE OVER ENGLAND though for anyone who wants a view into what should be a vanished world but for a lot of people is ever-present.