A few cuttings….

Another outlet that digests the news from the US across theatre and other artforms can be found at Artsjournal.com. And a New York friend of mine, Thomas Cott, who is director of marketing for Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, offers a brilliant free daily e-mail clippings service on arts marketing and related subjects, “You’ve Cott Mail”, that you can subscribe to here

I often highlight stories here that I then offer some commentary on. But in the spirit of “You’ve Cott Mail”, I am going to start directing you to some of the features I’ve been reading more regularly, and will do so below my main entries from now on, where I think something is worth highlighting. I hope this is becomes a valuable additional service to this blog; indeed, on some days it will actually become the entry for the day, as it is today.

• Personal biographies onstage: Toby Young, of course, turned his own life’s travails on the slippery slopes of journalism into a book, “How to Lose Friends and Alienate People”, that was subsequently transformed into both a one-man stage play (first performed by Jack Davenport, then by Toby himself) and then a movie (with Simon Pegg). More recently, a fellow arts journalist, Jasper Rees, turned his own journey into picking up playing the horn once again into a book, “I Found My Horn”, that was subsequently adapted for the stage. Now in today’s Independent, columnist Brian Viner reports that his regular columns for the paper - originally titled “Tales of the Country”, now called “Home and Away” - are to be adapted for the stage by the Ludlow-based theatre company Pentabus, with plans “for it to tour village halls around this time next year, and perhaps even for it to be staged on Broadway. Sorry, I meant in Broadway. I’m told that the United Reformed Church Hall on the High Street is a smashing little venue.”

He admits, “In our house, however, we are already getting ideas above our station. Jane wonders whether we might be able to interest Andrew Lloyd Webber in a Saturday teatime BBC1 reality show, in which women will audition for the chance of a lifetime to play her at Pudleston Village Hall. They could call it Wife of Brian. Failing that, she hopes Pentabus are aware that Julie Christie lives not far away over the Welsh border, and might be tempted to tread the boards again, albeit the boards of Clun Memorial Hall rather than the Royal Court. As for who should play me, Daniel Craig might fancy a break from the rigours of James Bond movies, although Jane thinks that Richard Griffiths could better capture my essence.”

But he’s worried about the reception of theatre critics. “So far I’ve had to withstand only the barbs of literary critics, a slightly less savage breed, although they can be hard enough.” He needn’t worry much - though the Independent might despatch a stringer to a village hall, they’re usually off our critical radar.

• England People Very Naïve: Also in today’s Independent, Yasmin Alibhai-Brown adds her voice to the commentary on England People Very Nice that has already seen the play take on a life beyond the arts pages. But she makes this interesting point: “It took me days to decide what I thought of the controversial England People Very Nice at the National. My impressions shape-shifted, twisted and turned confusedly. What I might have said about the play in the first 48 hours didn’t make sense on subsequent days. It was a bit like the regret and wisdom that follow the thrilling kick of a really hot curry. I wonder now about critics who scribble reviews only hours after they scurry off from press nights. Would recollection in tranquillity or time make a difference to their judgements?” She reports that Nick Hytner and playwright Richard Bean “are baffled by the hostility they have generated”, and suggests there are two possible reasons. “Either they share some of the prejudices they show on stage - which I simply do not believe. Or, from where they sit, they do not understand the social habitat as it is at the moment. Their play could validate hostility faced by incomers or - worse - presents that pain as a rite of passage before winning acceptance. Hytner had hoped the work would not be a ‘controversy magnet’. England people very naive.”

• There’s a terrific interview with rising film star Tom Hardy in The Times today, who just two years ago was starring in Man of Mode at the National Theatre - but has now been signed up Hollywood super-agent Kevin Huvane to represent him. I love the candour of his response, though: “It’s like you finally get to meet the Wizard of Oz. But remember, the Wizard of Oz is just a small man in a fucking lift, with a microphone. So it’s a lot of smoke and mirrors.”

But then the interview is full of personal revelation, including his battles with firearm offences and drug addiction. The interview reports that he collapsed in a heap on the streets of Soho in 2003 after a punishing drugs binge. “I ended up in hospital and ultimately lost my wife because of my behaviour,” he is quoted as saying, and admits, “Yes, I am obsessive compulsive. And yes, I am probably a candidate for various psychological disorders, from Asperger’s to attention deficit disorder.” When he played Stuart Shorter in Stuart: A Life Backwards, he says, “Stuart’s Mum came up to me after it and said, ‘You really got him. At times I couldn’t watch.’ And I thought, ‘Wow, I’ve actually done something in my life, out of acting. I’m useful’.”