Friday 9th September 2011 by Will Langdale
A quick pick of what’s hot in the TicketTree.com office
Comedy theatre name change
This week saw an announcement that The Comedy Theatre is to have its name changed to honour the English dramatist Harold Pinter, who died in 2008. Pinter was a playwright, screenwriter, director and actor who received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2005, and the Comedy Theatre is being aptly renamed The Harold Pinter Theatre in a tribute to his life, work, and contribution to both the theatre and the arts as a whole.
Pinter’s first play was The Room, in 1957, but it is his second play that he’s perhaps best known for. The Birthday Party was a complete commercial failure, closing after a handful of performances, but a rave review by The Sunday Times in 1958 arguably saved Pinter’s career. The Birthday Party went on to be performed on television in 1964. Pinter’s early style was characterised by innocent situations twisted into absurd, threatening parodies of themselves. Another notable play of this period was The Homecoming, which was recently revived as part of the RSC’s 50th Anniversary.
The Comedy Theatre has had a lengthy relationship with Pinter, both hosting the plays he wrote, as well as plays he directed – blogger and critic Michael Coveney quotes a delicious aside by Tom Stoppard in his article on the renaming that raised a smile here at TicketTree. Recently, the theatre ran a revival of Betrayal, a 1978 play that is part of what’s often known as Pinter’s “memory plays”, and the newly-christened Harold Pinter Theatre’s first production is a play by a man who was a personal friend of Pinter (and indeed wrote his thesis on him), Ariel Dorfman. Death and the Maiden was written in 1990, and carries the same existential menace that characterises the best of Pinter’s work.
Theatre shuffling
It’s like musical theatre musical chairs this week in the West End, with two shows confirming new dates at new theatres.
As reported last week, Chicago’s making its way to the Garrick Theatre, and we can now confirm dates. Opening on November 7th, the production is currently running right the way through until January 2013! The show’s no stranger to long runs, having played hundreds and hundreds of performances since its West End opening in 1979, and if you can’t make it to London the 2012 dates will run alongside a national tour.
Also moving is Crazy For You, an adaptation of George and Ira Gershwin’s 1930 musical Crazy Girl. The show was updated for Broadway in 1992, and has spent the past month at the Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre. With Betty Blue Eyes’ untimely September finish at the Novello Theatre, Crazy For You is coming in from the cold, opening on October 8th and running through ‘til late July next year.
Matt Lucas leaves Les Miserables
After joining the cast on June 23rd alongside English tenor and part-time heartthrob Alfie Boe, comic actor Matt Lucas plays his final performance of Les Miserables tomorrow evening. Perhaps most famous for sketch show Little Britain, Lucas played innkeeper Thernadier in the show’s 25th anniversary performance at the O2 last October, before joining the cast this year for his current stint. Alfie Boe will continue his run as Jean Valjean until November 26th.
Deal of the week
To celebrate Chicago’s phoenixlike rise out of the ashes of its cancellation, a turn of phrase that would have been more appropriate had it replaced Blood Brothers at the Phoenix, we’re offering 5% off packages booked to see it for the next week. All you need to do is go through a booking then stick CHICAGOBLOG into the voucher field on the final page. Happy booking!