Don't bother, they're here
Outstanding Comedy Series
Black-ish (ABC)
Cobra Kai (Netflix)
Emily in Paris (Netflix)
The Flight Attendant (HBO Max)
Hacks (HBO Max)
The Kominsky Method (Netflix)
PEN15 (Hulu)
Ted Lasso (Apple TV+)
Outstanding Drama Series
The Boys (Prime Video)
Bridgerton (Netflix)
The Crown (Netflix)
The Handmaid’s Tale (Hulu)
Lovecraft Country (HBO)
The Mandalorian (Disney+)
Pose (FX)
This Is Us (NBC) Continue reading “73rd Primetime Emmy Awards nominees”
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London said arts matter with 400 musos, Holsts’ The Planet – Mars.
Yesterday, Broadway said it with Sunday.
I ugly cried. I was NOT emotionally ready. The profoundly intimate communion of a chorus & BERNADETTE PETERS?! ?#SaveTheArts #SaveTheArtsUK
pic.twitter.com/d8RS95kI46— Le Gateau Chocolat (@LeGateauChoc) October 8, 2020
On the one hand, so much to love with such an inordinate array of talent assembled to mark Sondheim’s 90th birthday. But on the other, where’s the editor, there’s a real sense of the rambling here too. Fortunately as this has been put together in lockdown (and very well too) it is easier than ever to skip to the bits you want (in the spirit of these times, I ain’t telling you who disappointed me).
For me, I loved the unexpectedness of Katrina Lenk’ ‘Johanna’, the cuteness of Beanie Feldstein & Ben Platt’s ‘It Takes Two’, and the energy of Alexander Gemignani’s ‘Buddy’s Blues’. And of the heavy hitters in the finale, Donna Murphy and Patti LuPone nailed ‘Send in the Clowns’ and ‘Anyone Can Whistle’ respectively, and there’s huge fun (if not finesse) in Christine Baranski, Meryl Streep & Audra McDonald giving us their ‘Ladies Who Lunch’. Continue reading “Lockdown Review: Take Me to the World: A Sondheim 90th Birthday Celebration”
Legendary Broadway composer Stephen Sondheim will be toasted with an all-star birthday concert, streaming live on Sunday 26th April. Hosted by Raúl Esparza, with musical direction by Mary-Mitchell Campbell, and coinciding with the 50th Broadway anniversary of Sondheim’s Company, Take Me to the World: A Sondheim 90th Birthday Celebration can be seen for free on YouTube.
This once-in-a-lifetime event, benefiting ASTEP (Artists Striving to End Poverty), will include a range of songs from the Sondheim catalogue performed by many of the artists who delivered iconic turns in his musicals, including Meryl Streep, Bernadette Peters, Patti LuPone, Mandy Patinkin, Audra McDonald, Christine Baranski, Donna Murphy, Kristin Chenoweth, Sutton Foster, Brian Stokes Mitchell, Kelli O’Hara, Aaron Tveit, Maria Friedman, Katrina Lenk, Michael Cerveris, Brandon Uranowitz, Elizabeth Stanley, Chip Zien, Alexander Gemignani, Iain Armitage, Stephen Schwartz and, from the cast of Pacific Overtures at Classic Stage Company, Ann Harada, Austin Ku, Kelvin Moon Loh and Thom Sesma.
“Somebody make me come through”
1. Alice Fearn
An unexpected favourite mainly due to the combination of its achingly beautiful strings (arranged by Ben Goddard) and the delicacy of Fearn’s beautiful delivery.
2. Raúl Esparza
This. In all its ferocious power, I just can’t imagine it being better done by a man.
“Kill all the lawyers”
If I’m completely honest, Abi Morgan’s The Split did leave me a tad disappointed as it veered away from its legal beginnings to something considerably more soapy over its six episodes. The personal lives of the Defoe clan well and truly took over at the expense of any of the cases they were looking after and even if that family includes Nicola Walker, Annabel Scholey and Deborah Findlay, it’s still a bit of a shame that it ended up so schlocky. Continue reading “TV Review: The Split Series 1 / The Good Fight Series 2”
“They must have excitement, and so must I”
In a world of Spotify and iTunes and other online music services, compilation albums ought to have died a death. But the enduring success of the Now That’s What I Call Music series puts the lie to that, showing that while the idea of curating your own content is tempting, many of us prefer to let someone else do it for us.
So Andrew Lloyd Webber’s decision to release new anthology Unmasked is a canny one in that respect (read my review here), tapping into the desire to have a nicely pleasant set of musical theatre tunes to pop on in the car. And as with any compilation, it’s as much about what hasn’t been included as what has, that stands out. Continue reading “How to solve a problem like a compilation – my alternative Unmasked”
The announcement of the new cast for Broadway’s hugely lauded Hello, Dolly! has been a most strange affair – names trickling out one by one, rather than one big splash. However, it is Bernadette Peters (from 20th January) who has the unenviable task of following in Bette Midler’s shoes and trying to maintain the hefty box office that she’s managed to garner, and maintain. Victor Garber and our very own Charlie Stemp (making his Broadway debut) have also been revealed and doubtless by the time you read this, more will be have been announced too, one by one.
Producers Tim Levy (Director, NT America) and Jordan Roth (President, Jujamcyn Theaters) announced today that the National Theatre Production of Tony Kushner’s epic and seminal masterwork, Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes, will return to Broadway for the first time since its now-legendary original production opened in 1993. This spectacular new staging of Part One of Angels in America, Millennium Approaches, and of Part Two, Perestroika, had its world premiere earlier this year in a sold-out run at the National Theatre, where it became the fastest selling show in the organization’s history. This strictly limited, 18-week engagement will begin performances at The Neil Simon Theatre on Friday, February 23, 2018, with an official opening on Wednesday, March 21. Public on sale is: 27 October at 10am NYC time. Continue reading “Round-up of news and treats and other interesting things”
“Sometimes I stand in the middle of the floor”
With the National’s highly anticipated production of Follies (Dominic Cooke directing a cast of 37 and an orchestra of 21, lest you forget) about to start previews in a week’s time, I thought I’d listen to about a hundred different versions of perhaps its most famous song – ‘Losing My Mind’ – and try and decide on a top ten, with the assumption of course that whatever Imelda Staunton will do with the song will be completely, utterly, life-changingly extraordinary (no pressure Meldz).