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.”
