Friday 12th August 2011 by Will Langdale
A quick pick of what’s hot in the TicketTree.com office
Spotlight on: The Vaudeville Theatre
This week saw the early closure of The Flying Karamazov Brothers at the Vaudeville Theatre, now stopping on August 20th. As a group of unrelated kilted Americans who have been performing variety acts since the 70s, you would be forgiven for wondering why their airbourne, Russian, fraternal name reflects exactly nothing about who they are. However, it’s that bold, kitschy and (aptly) vaudevillian throwback that makes the whole thing work, and we’re very sad to see them go!
The Vaudeville Theatre lies on the Strand, and in its early years played exactly this sort of variety act. It was converted from a billiard hall by its owner in 1870, and has been rebuilt twice since. Over the years it’s given London premiers to plays by such renowned writers as Alan Bennett, Willy Russell, and Arnold Wesker, to name but a few. The theatre has not changed hands much over the years, having had only five owners since 1892, including the Gatti family, who owned the building from then until 1969.
Following the closure of The Flying Karamazov Brothers is Arthur Miller’s play Broken Glass, written in 1994 and first seen in the UK at The National Theatre’s Lyttelton Theatre. This time it’s running for a month at the Tricycle Theatre, having opened on Wednesdsay, ahead of its transfer to the Vaudeville in September. The play follows Philip and Sylvia Gellburg, a Jewish couple living in New York in November 1938. Sylvia suffers lower-body paralysis after she learns of the events of Kristallnacht in Nazi Germany, where a quarter of all Jewish men in Germany were taken to concentration camps amid the mass destruction of Jewish property.
So what’s on next at the Vaudeville? Well, currently showing at Bristol’s Old Vic is the stage adaptation of Arthur Ransome’s Swallows and Amazons. It’s directed by the co-director of War Horse, Tom Morris, and it’s been confirmed for a strictly limited run at the Vaudeville over Christmas! The musical adventure, with music by The Divine Comedy’s Neil Hannon, is set in the Lake District in 1929, and tells the tale of the children of two families who pilot the two dinghies, the Swallow and the Amazon, during their school holidays. We’re really enthusiastic to get this up on the website too, especially as the reviews of the production in Bristol are extremely positive!
Deal of the week
Seeing as this week’s blog is all about the Vaudeville, it’d be rude not to offer readers a bit of a discount there! If you’d like to book a package to the acclaimed production of Broken Glass we’re giving 5% off with the code GLASSBLOG. As usual, just head through the forms and plug the voucher in at the end for some money off.