Posts Tagged ‘Julian Ovenden’
Friday 8 March 2019
There’s a cheeky story about the making of the 195O film classic All About Eve. Phil’s tried to find it on t’internet but all he could come up with was this 14 bumpy facts about All About Eve page. Worth-reading though.
Anyhoo he’ll deliver the story from his rather shaky memory as best he can. George Sanders (Addison deWitt in the film) was married to Zsa Zsa Gabor at the time and his newish wife was constantly turning up on the San Francisco film set to check up on him (well he was filming with Marilyn Monroe) and wanting Sanders to take her out shopping, to which the film’s writer/director Joseph L. Mankiewicz allegedly snapped “Fuck off Zsa Zsa we’re trying to make a movie here”. We’d love to believe it’s true. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in West End Whingers | 1 Comment »
Tags: All About Eve, entertainment, Gillian Anderson, Ivo Van Hove, Jan Versweyveld, Joseph L Mankiewicz, Julian Ovenden, Lily James, London, Monica Dolan, Noel Coward Theatre, P J Harvey, play, review, Rhashan Stone, Sheila Reid, Stanley Townsend, theatre, west end
Tuesday 5 August 2014
Phil feared that – like himself – My Night With Reg might not have worn too well.
He saw it at the Royal Court Upstairs when it opened twenty years ago and was something of a success, moving to the West End, winning both the Standard and Olivier best comedy awards and was subsequently turned into a TV film.
You can’t help but wonder if Kevin Elyot wanted to write a gay Abigail’s Party of sorts. It’s a tragi-comedy of manners and morals set partially at an intimate party complete with bowls of nibbles, copious drinking and smoking, an awkwardly uncomfortable character, sexual frustration, a chokingly funny fumbled seduction and all wrapped up in a (now) distinctly period setting (mid to late eighties) with glimpses of vinyl LPs and their sounds, plus like Abigail, we never get to see its titular character. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in West End Whingers | 7 Comments »
Tags: comedy, Donmar Warehouse, entertainment, Geoffrey Streatfeild, Jonathan Broadbent, Julian Ovenden, Kevin Elyot, Lewis Reeves, London, Matt Bardock, My Night With Reg, play, review, Richard Cant, Robert Hastie, theatre, west end
Wednesday 7 October 2009
Roll up! Roll up! See Annie Oakley, the best little sharpshooter in the west!
Roll up! Roll up! See possibly the most misguided, misfiring musical revival to go off half cock EVER.
Roll up! Roll up! Begin to forget what showbusiness is, never mind whether or not any other business might bear some resemblance to it.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in West End Whingers | 70 Comments »
Tags: Annie Get Your Gun, entertainment, Irving Berlin, Jane Horrocks, Julian Ovenden, London, musical, off-West End, review, Richard Jones, theatre, Ultz, Young Vic
Sunday 11 May 2008
It’s not every day you get a chance to see the kazongas of the person who won the Theatregoers’ Award for the Most Popular Musical Actress in The Last 21 Years (or one of her kazongas, anyway).
But that was the surprising position the West End Whingers found themselves in at a preview of the new musical Marguerite ( – The Musical!). Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Alain Boubil, Alexander Hanson, Alexandre Dumas, Annalene Beechey, Claude-Michel Schonberg, entertainment, Herbert Kretzmer, Jonathan Kent, Julian Ovenden, La Dame aux camélias, London, Marguerite, Matt Cross, Michel Legrand, musical, review, Ruthie Henshall, Simon Thomas, theatre, west end | 12 Comments »
Tags: Alain Boubil, Alexander Hanson, Alexandre Dumas, Annalene Beechey, Claude-Michel Schonberg, entertainment, Herbert Kretzmer, Jonathan Kent, Julian Ovenden, La Dame aux camélias, London, Marguerite, Matt Cross, Michel Legrand, musical, review, Ruthie Henshall, Simon Thomas, theatre, west end
A West End Whinger 