The Evening Standard has finally succumbed to the virus of star ratings that all but the Telegraph amongst the main newspaper reviews now routinely carry. So now we can cut straight to the chase as to whether Nicholas de Jongh likes something or not, and after blogging about his tendency to dislike more than to like only on Sunday, he actually kicked off yesterday with a four star rave for the fringe revival of Jonathan Harvey’s Beautiful Thing at the Sound.
Meanwhile, in other news, it was a joy to discover a smoking ban finally now imposed on the downstairs bar and restaurant at the Royal Court at last night’s press night for O Go My Man, which used to have to be approached through an impenetrable fog of cigarette smoke. Navigation into the bar is still painfully difficult, as everyone congregates at the foot of the narrow staircase that leads into it, and the bookshop is unfortunately positioned in the same place, too.
More and more theatres are going no smoking, from the National – both front-of-house and backstage now (where the removal of the ability to smoke in the Green Room has resulted in a petition being set up at the stage door), to the Savoy that – ever since it reopened following its fire a few years ago – has understandably been a no-smoking zone. Of course, what we’ll soon see, no doubt, are the floods of people who congregate on the pavements outside Broadway theatres during intervals when they rush out to grab a fag (in the English sense, not American).
