Noël Coward Theatre

Dr Strangelove will be screened in cinemas via NT Live from March 27 2025. With its legend tied up in that of its director Stanley Kubrick, its star Peter Sellers, its magnificent monochrome cinematography and moreover its release against the backdrop of the actual Cold War, Dr Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb is a film comedy that gets treated with arthouse reverence. And for that reason, there are nagging doubts about the idea of a stage version. Is director Sean Foley in the same league as Kubrick? Is Coogan in the same league as Sellers? Can it possibly be anything like as timely as the original? What do you do about the whole black and white thing? Broadly speaking the answers are no, no, no and well what do you think? But here’s the thing: at its heart Armando Iannucci and Foley‘s stage adaptation is just very aware that Dr Strangelove is fun, funny and possessed of a play-like structure, with the action almost all taking place in two locations. Foley’s production has some bite, but it’s also light and zingy, confident that with a couple of tweaks and a few new gags, the absurdist satire of the source material will amuse. Taking on the same roles Sellers did - plus one extra - Coogan is particularly strong as the most Alan Partridge-esque of the characters, Captain Lional Mandrake, a hapless RAF man who has been seconded to bonkers American General Ripper (John Hopkins). As the story begins, it‘s slowly dawning on the affable, servile...

This review is from the Almeida Theatre in January 2023. A Streetcar Named Desire returns in 2025 for a short run at the Noël Coward Theatre before heading for a slightly longer NYC run. Obviously we need to talk about Paul Mescal: the post-fame stage return of the star of ‘Normal People’ and ‘Aftersun’ is the reason the Almeida’s revival of Tennessee Williams’s landmark 1947 play ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’ sold its run out instantly (apparently if you queue for day-seats you have pretty good odds of success, FYI). But before that we really, really need to talk about Patsy Ferran. She’s undoubtedly a national treasure in the making – not yet a household name, but if you’ve seen her on stage, you’ll never forget her. However, the odds felt stacked against her in taking on Williams’s doomed protagonist Blanche DuBois, one of the all time great stage roles. Firstly, she is clearly cast against type. Ferran is technically just about the right age for Blanche, who we gather to be in her thirties despite her intense denial of this fact. But the role is typically played by middle-aged actresses, while Ferran still basically looks like a gawky teenager. By any conventional wisdom she should be playing delicate recluse Laura in Williams’s ‘The Glass Menagerie’, and saving Blanche for another decade or two. More practically, Ferran was a last-minute replacement as the lead in Rebecca Frecknall’s revival, after Lydia Wilson dropped out during rehearsals due to injury. While the...

It’s interesting to think what might have happened if then-youthful fringe troupe Mischief Theatre’s The Play That Goes Wrong had never quite made it to the West End, where it’s been sitting for a decade following a two year rise through London’s smaller venues. One wonders if Michief would have stayed together or gone their seperate way without their signature hit. Certainly it’s hard to imagine they’d have sent such a colossal volume of comedy plays to the West End in subsequent years, which have included Peter Pan Goes Wrong, The Comedy About a Bank Robbery, Magic Goes Wrong and Groan Ups, as well as a couple of improv-based shows. Their latest opus is The Comedy About Spies, which does exactly as it says on the label, being a ’60s-set farce about the scrapes that ensue when a rogue British agent steals a top secret weapon. Written by the company’s Henry Lewis and Henry Shields, you can’t ever say you don’t know what you’re getting with Mischief, but it’s nothing if not solid mainsatream comedy entertainment. Casting is TBA though the above image of the cast who did a scene at the Royal Variety Performance is probably quite a good clue (although not Alan Carr or Amanda Holden).