Theatre review: Frank and Percy

From several years - on and off - of the violent teenage musical shenanigans of Heathers resident on its main stage, it's a major change of pace as Ben Weatherill's Frank and Percy comes to London via Windsor and Bath. The gentle romantic comedy has been well-received on those earlier runs but what made a London transfer almost inevitable was the star casting of the titular pair: Roger Allam is Frank, widowed a couple of years earlier, and with little left to comfort him in his retirement other than his spoilt dog. It's on one of their visits to Hampstead Heath that he meets fellow dog-walker Percy (Ian McKellen,) and they strike up some small talk (the play was partly inspired by the way dog-walkers during lockdown found that chatting to each other became a treasured social interaction.)

Theatre review: Gently Down the Stream

Martin Sherman, who turns 80 this year, has a long list of theatre and movie writing credits but is still best remembered for Bent - which itself has its 40th anniversary this year - a play that reminded people of the oft-forgotten persecution of LGBT people by the Nazis. Having long wanted to write a more general "gay history" play he finally struck on the way to do it by following 13 years of a relationship with a 35-year age gap, in Gently Down the Stream. And "gently" is the right word for a play that covers some of the same ground, and has some of the same concerns as, The Inheritance, but in a much more intimate way. The concerns are those of Beau (Jonathan Hyde,) originally from New Orleans but, having travelled the world accompanying torch song singers on the piano, now long since settled in London where he works as a lounge pianist in a restaurant.

Theatre review: Ian McKellen on Stage - With Tolkien, Shakespeare, others...and you!

A couple of years ago Ian McKellen did a series of gala shows as a fundraiser for the Park Theatre, and with 2019 marking his 80th year he’s decided to revive that performance for a wider audience. This time around he’s doing 80 performances, each on a different stage across the country, with the proceeds going to the theatres or to a charity or community project associated with them. A couple of the venues have a few seats whose prices don’t break the bank, so I caught up with the awkwardly-titled Ian McKellen on Stage - With Tolkien, Shakespeare, others...and you! at the Arts Theatre. Many of the theatres on the tour have a personal connection to McKellen, and in the case of the Arts it’s where he made his amateur West End debut in a University show, and where he decided (after a particularly glowing review) to try it professionally. He says he can show you the exact paving stone outside the theatre where he made the decision.

Theatre review: The Exorcist

Just in time for Halloween, Sean Mathias brings to London what should be a surefire hit while everyone's looking for something spooky, although whether it can sustain that for the rest of its run to March will have to remain to be seen. John Pielmeier adapts William Peter Blatty's book - although William Friedkin's film is at least as much, if not more of an inspiration. Actress and single mother Chris (Jenny Seagrove) is put up in an old Georgetown house while on location for her latest film. Her daughter Regan (Clare Louise Connolly) has just celebrated her 12th birthday (give or take a couple of decades,) and her absent father has forgotten it for the second year running, so she's vulnerable to any father substitute who might be on offer. So when the disembodied voice of Gandalf starts talking to her in the attic she agrees to play a game with him - one which results in the demon "Captain Howdy" taking up residence in the girl's body and terrorising her family and friends.

Theatre review: No Man's Land

If you're looking to cast a play about a pair of septuagenarian eccentrics you can't really go much starrier than the original theatrical bromance of Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen. Sean Mathias' production of No Man's Land originated on Broadway where it played in repertory with the same team's Waiting for Godot, but it's taken its time coming back to the West End (via a short national tour.) Not that Harold Pinter is ever exactly an open book, but No Man's Land has a reputation for being particularly impenetrable: Hirst (SirPatStew) is a writer, a successful one with a large Hampstead house and a couple of assistants, but also a reclusive one who doesn't venture out much further than the pub. It's on the way back through Hampstead Heath one night that he encounters the much shabbier poet Spooner (Serena,) and invites him back to his drawing room to continue drinking into the night.