Back from Broadway to Blair on Broadway….

It’s obviously been a slow week in London while I’ve been gone, because the Hen and Chickens was strangely graced by a flurry of first-string critics: Michael Billington and Charlie Spencer (who has notably absented himself from reviewing Tommy Steele this time!), plus the Standard’s Fiona Mountford and Time Out’s Jane Edwardes.

If this fringe musical re-imagines the former PM’s life as a Broadway musical, I’ve just come back from there, of course, and since yesterday didn’t allow me any time to breath and take stock, I am going to try to draw breath now and do so.

A few of my favourite Broadway (and post-Broadway) things:

1) Seeing The Color Purple again – It’s not a great show, but seeing it again with a packed house cheering on American Idol winner Fantasia in the lead role was very moving. Not just the palpable bond and sense of ownership that the audience extends to her, nor the commitment she brings to it in turn, but also the fact that this was the most racially diverse audience on Broadway: a good proportion of the audience is black, something you see at very few other shows around town, and it proves, once again, that there is a ready and willing audience amongst the black community for shows that speak to them.

2) Paper Mill Playhouse in New Jersey has long been a regular destination for me – driving there with a friend last Saturday only took about thirty minutes from Manhattan, or you can take a train from Penn Station or Hoboken to Millburn that takes about the same time. The theatre has lately run into serious financial difficulties, and even if the current attraction Happy Days is unlikely to mean happier days for the theatre yet, I do hope that the theatre survives. It’s always a pleasure to leave Manhattan behind for the more sedate, suburban pleasures of Millburn, with lunch at Charlie Brown’s steakhouse first. Over the years, I have seen terrific productions here of shows like Nine and Follies; though the current programming] is far more conservative as they seek to restore their fortunes, it’s great that its there.

3) Piano bars still abound in Manhattan, where anyone with a song in their heart can step up to the mike and perform. But one of the best late night evenings is the weekly After Party in the downstairs Laurie Beecham Theatre at the Westbank Café on West 42nd Street. One of the great things about it is that there is no cover and no minimum, so there’s no need to spend a fortune; but you also get full value. Last Friday’s show, for instance, featured Spring Awakening’s outstanding Jonathan Groff performing three songs.

4) The revival of Terrence McNally’s gay bathhouse play The Ritz hardly reveals a neglected farcical masterpiece – though it reveals a lot of towel-clad men (including sometime gay-for-pay porn star Ryan Idol). But there are a couple of scenes that are simply irresistible for musical theatre buffs: Rosie Perez mangling a bunch of showtunes as Googie Gomez, an aspiring cabaret performer at the baths; and best of all, a minute of sheer musical theatre heaven when Seth Rudetsky single-handedly (but with many, many hands) recreates “Magic to Do” from Pippin. That is, of course, a show I am obsessed by; I chose it as one of my five essential musicals when I appeared as a guest on Elaine Paige’s Radio 2 show a few months ago.

5) David Hyde Pierce, best known for playing Niles to Frasier Crane in the Frasier, is currently starring on Broadway in Kander and Ebb’s Curtains, and I got to interview him earlier this week for a profile. He’s as delightful in person as you might imagine, and provided me with another of my Broadway highlights.

And what am I sorry I missed in London while I was away in New York?

1) The presentation of the TMA Awards last Sunday at Hampstead Theatre – this is always a convivial occasion, though as a celebration of national theatre that weirdly takes place in London at one of our smaller theatres, I am always intrigued as to how it truly reflects the scope of what’s going on around the country, or whether everyone who should be there actually is. But it’s good to see that Scottish theatre scored so highly in the awards, winning five awards; and also recognition for Polly Stenham’s That Face, which took the award for Best New Play.

2) The civil partnership of two friends of mine from New York who have lived in London now for the past few years: Bill Rosenfield and Gary Gunas, respectively record and theatre producers, formally tied the knot on Tuesday in Islington, though they’ve actually been together for 30 years!. I am sorry I couldn’t have been there.