In The Paper

In this week’s issue of The Stage:

• Mark Ritchie looks at whether the proposed smoking ban in England will, in saving lives, cause the death of the working men’s clubs
• Anthony Field considers the future for British independent producers in the West End
• Media commentator Maggie Brown looks at the fate of TV phone quizzes in the wake of the Richard & Judy affair
• Actor Ben Chaplin on returning to theatre and reuniting with Richard Eyre
• Richard Thomas, creator of Jerry Springer: The Opera, talks about Kmobat Opera’s new series of opera comedies for BBC2
• Alistair Smith ponders the resurgence of Restoration comedy in the West End, comparing The Man of Mode and The Soldiers’ Fortune
• Drama company Cardboard Citizens, who provide drama workshos for London’s homeless, celebrate their 15th anniversary

Continue reading for some previews of our lead features.

From theatre, to TV sitcom, to Hollywood — and back again. Ben Chaplin’s career is impressively diverse.

I’ve never had a plan. Like a taxi driver trying to plan their day, I can’t really plan what comes or appeals to me. I’m getting too old for pigeon-holing, to be honest. It’s just happening at its own pace, in its own time…

…In America they think we’re intellectual, just because we’ve got an English accent. They think we’re cool, they think we’re charming. You can have a total estuary accent and they still think you’re Brian Sewell. They’re very forgiving about it in that way, much more than we are of them.

Richard Thomas, creator of Jerry Springer: The Opera, has made a series of new operas based on TV shows for BBC2. Part parody, part tribute, some of Britain’s most easily recognised shows are lampooned:

“These five operas have great comic sensibility, married with quite traditional music,” says the former comedian, adding that creating his musical version of The Apprentice was “irresistible” and that the format of the show lent itself, quite naturally, to opera.

Meanwhile, Channel 4’s Wife Swap has been revamped in Spouse Change. “The series is probably one of the few reality shows with a heart. Good reality TV throws things up that drama wouldn’t, necessarily,” he says.

“My show is based on an actual US episode, but hammed up a bit. So the gay guy in the redneck town manages to make a bit of a difference. This is my gay rhapsody.”

Restoration comedy is back in a big way at the moment, with the National Theatre playing host to The Man of Mode, while The Solders’ Fortune plays at the Young Vic. Alistair Smith compares the two, both with each other and with today’s theatre and society.

The former is staged in a modernised version, updated and set in a world of high fashion and 24-hour hedonistic parties. The latter is presented in a form which would have been more recognisable to its contemporary audiences, although in a venue which had to create a proscenium arch especially for the production.

“I guess one of the things that is tricky is that there is this genre — Restoration comedy — with which there are many associations,” says [the Young Vic’s David] Lan. “The associations from a theatrical point of view are mostly to do with the style of playing. People training at drama schools often have a course called Restoration, in which you are trained to talk in a particular way and move in a particular way and wave your arms around in a particular way and use a fan.”

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This week, The Stage takes a close-up look at the world of magic and magicians, with a six page magic and illusions supplement. Also in this week’s issue:

• Full coverage of the Olivier Awards, with news, Chit Chat and award winners’ photos
• Duncan Turner looks at how online video sites such as YouTube and Google Video are transforming the entertainment world online.
• Gerry Morrissey, newly elected general secretary of trade union Bectu, talks about his plans for the organisation’s future.
• Full reviews of last week’s Showcall Showcase, the second part of the biggest event in the light entertainment calendar.
• Sarah Parish, star of BBC1’s new one-off drama Recovery, talks about life playing the wife of a brain-injured man, an evil space spider in Doctor Who, and making her debut as a TV director.
• Hayley Mills, who has joined the cast of ITV’s Wild at Heart, talks about her life in the spotlight.
• Backstage: Geoff Joyce examines the risks to theatre posed by Ofcom’s proposed spectrum auction, which could threaten the use of radio microphones in entertainment.

Continue reading for some previews of our lead features.

As part of our special six-page supplement on the world of magic and illusion, Paul Kieve talks about his work in adding illusions into theatrical shows. When Lord of the Rings opens at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, it will feature Kieve’s illusions. He has also worked for all the national companies, bar the Royal Ballet.

Last year, there was a lot of my stuff in Sleeping Beauty at the Coliseum, which is one of those old Moss Empire variety theatres. I suppose I’m one of the only people who is getting to put big illusions into those venues.

The supplement also features interviews with 2magicians, John Wade and Mac King and a preview of this weekend’s Blackpool Magicians’ Convention.

Sarah Parish talks about her new BBC1 drama, Recovery, in which she stars opposite David Tennant for the third time (following Blackpool and last Christmas’s Doctor Who). Tony Marchant’s drama chronicles the tale of a couple struggling to cope after the husband suffers a personality-altering brain injury following a car accident.

The idea that somebody is in a sense dead, but they are still there, is quite a complex one. You still have your husband — the flesh and blood is there — but the soul and nuance is gone. In a sense, you don’t get a chance to grieve… You have to think, how far can a family go without falling apart in this situation? It really does push the vows, for better, for worse, because you need to be able to find a way to love somebody again — if you can at all.

She also reveals the trepidation she felt while journeying behind the camera for her first role as director of a new BBC1 Afternoon Play, Baby Boom. The BBC scheme sees several actors take on directorial duties, and will be accompanied by a documentary detailing her progress.

When I signed up, I was kind of under the impression it would be a bit easier. There’s a bit of you that presumes it is probably a bit of a gimmick and so someone will be holding your hand a bit. I can tell you now, having done it, it didn’t feel like a gimmick at all…

As an actor, you already have an instinct on how you would do something, which is very destructive as a director.

It’s hard to believe, but Hayley Mills has turned 60 years old — and been a major star for 48 of them. She gives credit for her career to her parents:

“How has my career lasted so long, when so many others who started young have fallen by the wayside? I think that I was truly blessed with a pair of intelligent and very sensible parents. Parents who could listen, as well as talk.”

She does agree, with a chuckle, that “Daddy’s selection of sponsors for me at my Christening did perhaps show that he was thinking, even then, that I might be an actress. Not many people can say that Laurence Olivier and Noel Coward are their godfathers.”

The Stage is available from most branches of WH Smith and many other newsagents every Thursday, price £1.30. Alternatively, you can subscribe and receive your copy by post each week.

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In this weeks’ print edition of The Stage:

• Insight: Nick Awde on how new technologies are providing new and exciting ways to promote theatre.
• Marc Etches on the Casino Advisory Panel’s decision not to award the sole super-casino licence to Blackpool.
• Brenda Blethyn on juggling Hollywood, television and the theatre
• Mark Shenton interviews Patrick Stewart, who describes being offered Star Trek: The Next Generation as a ‘calamity’.
• Cast and crew of ITV1’s new big-budget family drama, Primeval, talk about the show’s development.
• Former EastEnder Charlie Brooks talks about about her new stage role in Our Country’s Good at the Liverpool Playhouse.
• Backstage: Barbara Eifler on the development of a National Skills Academy for technical and offstage skills.
• The fascinating history of the Intimate Theatre in Palmers Green.

More about this week’s issue, with photos, after the jump.

Mark Shenton interviews Patrick Stewart, who stars as Prospero in The Tempest at the Novello Theatre from February 22.

Stewart talks about the time in 1986, when he got the call to appear in a production of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? at the Young Vic. Instead of transferring to the West End, he ended up travelling to the West Coast, playing Captain Jean-Luc Picard.

I was a different actor after that — doing that kind of play, and finally being able to make truth of an emotional commitment to a role like that in such a small, exposing theatre, with the support of three magnificent actors [Billie Whitelaw, Saskia Reeves and Matthew Marsh], made all the difference to me. The calamity that then happened to me was that I was offered Star Trek: The Next Generation.

[…]

It did change many, many things, and I’m immensely grateful for that. I have worked hard not in any sense to feel they were wasted years —though time is a factor in all of this, and I now have a lot of catching up to do. I feel that acutely — not that there have been lost opportunities, but that there are things I might have done and I’ve got to do a lot of them quickly now.

Meanwhile, Al Senter discusses a life in theatre, television and film with Oscar nominee Brenda Blethyn.

Blethyn seems unruffled by fame. She recalls the mother’s surprise when she witnessed for the first time the spectacle of fans asking for her daughter’s autograph. “Who did they think you were?” Mrs Bottle wanted to know.

Blethyn is more likely to suffer awe in other people’s presence than play the grande dame with the public.

“I met Sidney Poitier at a party and before I could introduce myself to him, he said, ‘How are you, Miss Blethyn?’, and I nearly fainted away…”

Also this week, we have some behind-the-scenes talk from the people behind Primeval. Producer Tim Haines and writer Adrian Hodges share their thoughts, as does lead actor Douglas Henshall:

For someone who is playing an all-action hero, I’ve a number of phobias, which aren’t particularly tough or indeed heroic. I’m a bit claustrophobic – I’ve never done any deep water diving in my life – and I have vertigo. Not a great start really.

The Stage is published every Thursday, price £1.30 from most WH Smith outlets and other newsagents. Subscription options are also available.

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