Wyndham’s theatre, London Grant brings shock-haired vigour as a vain novelist forced to welcome his boho children’s surprise guests in comedy of clipped social embarrassment Hay Fever, now one of Noël Coward’s best-known and most-performed works, hasn’t always been a smash hit. British critics who found its West End debut in 1925 amusing enough nevertheless noted its lack of plot, and the first Broadway production was a flop. A critic for Vogue called it “funny in places”, which sounds like the kind of stinging putdown you’d expect from the playwright’s own hand. A century of performances have proved the play’s lasting power, but its comic effect has always lain less in the words as written than their delivery – it is, after all, about a family that is “artificial to the point of lunacy”. At their centre is diva Judith Bliss, who has retired from the stage to take up the role of country hostess. When she, her husband and their self-consciously bohemian childre...
Musician’s work spanned the mainstream and avant-garde, including in fusions with the world of rock
Carla Bley, the American jazz composer-pianist celebrated for boldly avant-garde work as well as her uplifting and beautiful takes on the genre’s mainstream, has died aged 87.
Her death was announced by longtime partner and musical collaborator Steve Swallow, who said the cause was complications from brain cancer.
Continue reading...from The Guardian https://ift.tt/YXhu95b
via IFTTT
Comments
Post a Comment