CHRISTMAS is coming and the theatre, like the goose, is getting fat. Up and down the land, theatres seek to swell their coffers by putting on lavish shows that will provide some kind of insurance against possible hard times ahead, but, although pantomime is still popular, I am struck by the changing nature of Yuletide entertainment.
When I was a child in the postwar Midlands, panto, Peter Pan and Toad of Toad Hall were the seasonal staples. I can vividly recall seeing a young Norman Wisdom in Robinson Crusoe, Phyllis Calvert as J. M. Barrie’s boy-who-wouldn’t-grow-up and Patrick Wymark as A. A. Milne’s bombastic hero. I’m sure you can still find their equivalents today, but what is immediately apparent, as you scan the brochures, is how many of the big regional theatres rely on classic American musicals to draw the crowds.
At the Sheffield Crucible, Robert Hastie is directing Frank Loesser’s 1950 landmark show Guys and Dolls, with Kadiff Kirwan, lately seen on TV in Fleabag and This Way Up, as Sky Masterson, who wins a bet by luring a Salvation Army lass to Havana. At the Curve, Leicester, Nikolai Foster recreates the gang warfare of the Jets and the Sharks with a revival of West Side Story. And at the Royal Exchange, Manchester, Jo Davies is directing a revival of Gypsy which, as West Side Story does, has lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and a book by Arthur Laurents.
This is by no means an exhaustive list. You can catch a stage version of The Wizard of Oz at Leeds Playhouse and, although it’s not an American show, expectations are running high at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre for a musical version of David Walliams’s The Boy in the Dress with songs by Robbie Williams and Guy Chambers. One of the most joyous shows in London right now is the revival of Mary Poppins at the Prince Edward, with Zizi Strallen giving a terrific performance as P. L. Travers’s unearthly nanny.
Diese Geschichte stammt aus der November 27, 2019-Ausgabe von Country Life UK.
Starten Sie Ihre 7-tägige kostenlose Testversion von Magzter GOLD, um auf Tausende kuratierte Premium-Storys sowie über 8.000 Zeitschriften und Zeitungen zuzugreifen.
Bereits Abonnent ? Anmelden
Diese Geschichte stammt aus der November 27, 2019-Ausgabe von Country Life UK.
Starten Sie Ihre 7-tägige kostenlose Testversion von Magzter GOLD, um auf Tausende kuratierte Premium-Storys sowie über 8.000 Zeitschriften und Zeitungen zuzugreifen.
Bereits Abonnent? Anmelden
Happiness in small things
Putting life into perspective and forces of nature in farming
Colour vision
In an eye-baffling arrangement of geometric shapes, a sinister-looking clown and a little girl, Test Card F is one of television’s most enduring images, says Rob Crossan
'Without fever there is no creation'
Three of the top 10 operas performed worldwide are by the emotionally volatile Italian composer Giacomo Puccini, who died a century ago. Henrietta Bredin explains how his colourful life influenced his melodramatic plot lines
The colour revolution
Toxic, dull or fast-fading pigments had long made it tricky for artists to paint verdant scenes, but the 19th century ushered in a viridescent explosion of waterlili
Bullace for you
The distinction between plums, damsons and bullaces is sweetly subtle, boiling down to flavour and aesthetics, but don’t eat the stones, warns John Wright
Lights, camera, action!
Three remarkable country houses, two of which have links to the film industry, the other the setting for a top-class croquet tournament, are anything but ordinary
I was on fire for you, where did you go?
In Iceland, a land with no monks or monkeys, our correspondent attempts to master the art of fishing light’ for Salmo salar, by stroking the creases and dimples of the Midfjardara river like the features of a loved one
Bravery bevond belief
A teenager on his gap year who saved a boy and his father from being savaged by a crocodile is one of a host of heroic acts celebrated in a book to mark the 250th anniversary of the Royal Humane Society, says its author Rupert Uloth
Let's get to the bottom of this
Discovering a well on your property can be viewed as a blessing or a curse, but all's well that ends well, says Deborah Nicholls-Lee, as she examines the benefits of a personal water supply
Sing on, sweet bird
An essential component of our emotional relationship with the landscape, the mellifluous song of a thrush shapes the very foundation of human happiness, notes Mark Cocker, as he takes a closer look at this diverse family of birds
