February 2009 Archives

Peter Pan is coming home to Kensington Gardens this summer in a new tented version of the perennial family favourite.

It has been a while is the offing (The Stage first revealed the plans back in 2007) but, in that time producers have assembled an impressive creative team - ex Almeida director Ben Harrison, a brand new stage adaptation by Tanya Ronder (which she promises will “strip the candy floss” from the story) and - perhaps most importantly designer William Dudley.

Dudley’s design looks to be central to the whole project and at a press launch yesterday he unveiled some intriguing images showing early explorations of a 360 projection concept which he has planned for the show.

So, Bristol Old Vic has found itself a new artistic director.

Tom Morris strikes me as a pretty fantastic choice. As a director he has a foot in both camps - large scale and small scale - and will, if anyone is ever going to be able to, bring together the disparate artistic movements in Bristol, where you have physical theatre companies, street artists and of course a more traditional vein.

His work on War Horse shows that he is able to harness the skills of what is traditionally small-scale theatre (puppetry) and turn it into a big (and soon to be commercial) crowd pleaser.

This is what Bristol needs. Someone who can harness the abundant and very specific skills on offer in the region, but still turn out theatre that large numbers of people want to come to see.

We must remember that the problems of the previous regime were very much rooted in their inability to attract sufficient audiences.

Not too long ago, Chichester Festival Theatre was a bit of a mess.

First, there was the financial crisis. Then, the arrival of the artistic triumvirate of Ruth Mackenzie, Martin Duncan and Stephen Pimlott, who managed to secure extra public funding, but programmed seasons which failed to appeal to large swathes of the local population. When they left in 2005, the phrase “poisoned chalice” was muttered whenever the issue of who might replace them was discussed.

Step forward Jonathan Church..

It looked like a near impossible job, but I don’t think it’s unfair to say that with the announcement of the venue’s 2009 season, the turnaround is now complete.

So, the nominations for the Oliviers have been announced and, as usual, there’s at least one big surprise omission.

This year it is Kenneth Branagh and Michael Grandage’s turn.

Despite being critically lauded for his perfomance in Ivanov (and picking up the Critics’ Circle Award last week), Branagh doesn’t even make the shortlist for the Oliviers.

And while the Donmar has managed to scoop 13 nominations, I think Grandage could probably deserve to feel a little aggrieved that he hasn’t got a nod for at least one of the productions that he has helmed - Ivanov, The Chalk Garden, Twelfth Night…

Maybe it was something they said…

The full nominations can be found here

Also, in case your interested, here’s a few observations from the nominations list, in no particular order.