Review – Loot, Park Theatre

We’ve been scratching our heads recently, not just each others, but our own.

When Andrew booked for this production of Joe Orton’s Loot (1965) it was because someone – we know not who –  promised that we needed to book early because it would sell out when an an all-star cast was announced.

So, we waited, and waited, and waited for names we knew and possibly loved to be announced. Nada. Names trickled out and not one we recognised, that was until Phil somehow remembered sitting next to Sinéad Matthews on the tube last year as she studied her Hedda Gabler script. Both Phil and Andrew are convinced they had read the announcement, yet we have no proof. We’ve trawled our emails but can find nothing. Did we both share the same dream one night? Spooky. Heck, our own entourage was more starry than this lot.

Review – Madame Rubinstein, Park Theatre

You wait a lifetime to see Helena Rubinstein and Elizabeth Arden portrayed on stage and then you get two in a row.

Well for Andrew anyhoo. It was just over a week since he saw the musical War Paint (with Patti Lupone as HR and Christine Ebersole as EA) on the actual Broadway. What are the chances?

So this is Jez Bond‘s production of Madame Rubinstein, the almost non-singing, certainly non-dancing account by John Misto with Miriam Margolyes and Frances Barber as the the two grandes dames of cosmetics.

Review – The Boys In The Band, Park Theatre

Second in a row of our series of plays featuring a splendid central performance by an actor as a blisteringly vile gay in a period drama at a north London fringe theatre.

Amazingly first time at the Park Theatre for Phil. And first time for The Boys In The Band too. No, Phil had never seen William (director of The French Connection and The Exorcist and once married to Lesley-Anne Down) Friedkin‘s 1970 film either. Andrew had. So when Phil suggested a trip to Mart Crowley‘s 1968 play Andrew replied, “I’m up for an evening of self-loathing”.