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Theatre Review: Calendar Girls @ Noel Coward Theatre

There are nights in the theatre for which you gladly queue round the block months in advance, secure in the knowledge that the magnitude of the screen star you hope to see outweighs any reservations about the play, the director or the ticket price. It …

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Theatre Review: Annie Get Your Gun @ Young Vic

‘The best thing for YOU …’ sings Annie Oakley in the rootin’ shootin’ tuner Annie Get Your Gun ‘… would be ME.’ The best thing for YOU, dear Londonist reader, would be to stay away from this terrible production. Written in 1946 by the great …

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Theatre Review: Inherit The Wind @ The Old Vic

Kevin Spacey’s timing is exemplary. Not just in his personal performance but in bringing to the Old Vic such a dynamic production of the 1955 American war horse ‘Inherit The Wind’ – a courtroom drama based on the true-life story of a young Tennessee school …

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Theatre Review: Breakfast At Tiffany’s @ Theatre Royal Haymarket

What can you remember of ‘Breakfast at Tiffany’s’ – Mickey Rooney with an unconvincing set of false teeth and a cringingly awful Chinese accent? Audrey Hepburn cool as a January cucumber in her swept-up chignon, tiara, pearls and yard-long cigarette holder? The gamine, twittery but …

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First transatlantic nonstop arrives London City

Shortly before 7 this morning, the first ever transatlantic flight from New York JFK to tidgy London City Airport is due to touch down. In fact, estimated for 6.48am it’s trespassing pretty close to the airport’s noise abatement limit of no flights before 0630. Will …

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Theatre Rumour: New Casting for ‘Calendar Girls’

Spotted – and we use the word advisedly – at the Noel Coward Theatre this week was ex-Coronation Street barmaid Bet Lynch, sorry Miss Julie Goodyear OBE being feted by the management who are currently pondering a fresh cast for Calendar Girls when the EastEnders …

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Theatre Review/Preview: Talent @ Menier Chocolate Factory

Back in the days when boys became bands without the unwelcome attentions of Louis Walsh, or girls sang aloud without a televised vote – young Victoria Wood penned a simple, funny and sweet piece for the Sheffield Crucible based on her own experiences backstage in …

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Theatre Review: Into The Woods @ Landor Theatre

It’s 21 years since Stephen Sondheim took English Pantomime by the scruff of the neck and throttled it into a self-styled morality play called ‘Into the Woods’. If nothing else, the current production at the Landor theatre highlights the age of the material, and the …

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Review: Nigel Kennedy @ Tower Festival

Purism is not the issue here. The evening started stately enough with Nigel Kennedy, still sporting his Gary-Rhodes-on-steroids butchered pineapple haircut, leading the Philharmonia orchestra through two melodious movements of Bach. So far, so dignified, so what. What the audience had come for – and …

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Theatre Review: One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest @ Bridewell Theatre

At a time when bankers and brokers are pilloried in the media for turning the economy into a gibbering basket-case, the idea that a bunch of amateur thespians from the Stock Exchange should get together to perform the inmates-take-over-the-asylum piece ‘One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s …