Stage-to-screen review: Good Night, and Good Luck

Former Golden Girls guest star George Clooney made his Broadway debut last year in Good Night, and Good Luck, an adaptation of one of his own films from twenty years earlier. One performance was broadcast live on CNN of all places, and that recording has now been added with very little fanfare to Netflix in the UK - possibly to make sure everyone forgets about Jay Kelly a little bit quicker. For David Cromer's production Clooney and Grant Heslov adapt their own script, with Clooney moving up to the lead role of Edward R. Murrow, the 1950s CBS news reporter whose team took on the, at the time seemingly all-powerful, Senator Joseph McCarthy. McCarthy's HUAC witchhunts, most famous on stage as the inspiration for The Crucible, used a panic they themselves had largely created about Communist spies hiding in America, to build a culture of fear where McCarthy was the ultimate arbiter of what was true and who was loyal.

Theatre review: The Producers

The last show I was able to reschedule from my most recent bout of Covid is the Menier Chocolate Factory's revival of The Producers, now settling into a West End run. I was a fan of Mel Brooks' film long before Brooks (book, music and lyrics) and Thomas Meehan (book) adapted it into a musical, saw the original West End production and have listened to the songs many times over the years, so this was one of those cases where I was looking to see if Patrick Marber's production would do something new with a show I was already very familiar with. In the end Marber doesn't attempt any kind of reinvention but offers up a solid version that hits all the classic comic notes. Max Bialystock (Andy Nyman) is a Broadway producer who was once, he insists, a success, but in recent years his career has consisted entirely of him acting as an unlikely gigolo to wealthy old ladies, who fund his invariably disastrous shows.

Theatre review: Waitress

Jessie Nelson (book) and Sara Bareilles’ (music and lyrics) musical tragicomedy Waitress, based on Adrienne Shelly’s film and currently entering its fourth year on Broadway, comes to the West End with one of its former New York leading ladies, Katharine McPhee, in the title role. Jenna is one of the waitresses at a small-town diner that specialises in pies, but she’s also the cook who bakes them, and comes up with a new flavour invention every day to be the daily special. She themes these around her moods and preoccupations of the day, so ends up with flavours like blueberry and bacon, or marshmallow and mermaid (?) pie that have become the diner’s signature dish. At the start of the show she’s devastated to discover that she’s pregnant – and that it is her husband Earl’s (Peter Hannah) baby.

Theatre review: The Same Deep Water As Me

Fast becoming a big-name playwright on both sides of the Atlantic, Nick Payne can't really be accused of sticking to a formula. Following his biggest success with the multiverse-spanning Constellations last year, his latest comedy-drama The Same Deep Water As Me goes for a less lyrical, starker subject matter in the world of "no win, no fee" ambulance-chasing lawyers. But in John Crowley's premiere production at the Donmar it winds up being a rather flat affair. His escape to London having ended in ignominy, Andrew (Daniel Mays) has returned to his home town of Luton where he's joined Barry (Nigel Lindsay) in his injury-law firm. Despite the increasing popularity of this kind of lawsuit, their firm doesn't seem to be reaping the benefits, and they're desperately scrabbling for clients. So Andrew is vulnerable to getting sucked into a plan to defraud big corporations by staging repeated car accidents and suing for imaginary injuries, in the knowledge that deep-pocketed companies would rather settle than go to court.