Good week / Bad week

– October 1, 2010Posted in: goodweek-badweek

Bad week for young actors, many of whom are not nearly as good as Ian McKellen.  The star of X-Men, Lord of The Rings and The Da Vinci Code blamed the “decline in amateur dramatics” and “the lure of money”.

Good week for luxury flat-hunters.  The Arcola theatre will move from its current site to make way for a block of flats, with the last show in the old building on 18 December of this year.

Bad week for the Donmar (and for Michael Billington, who is sad), which lost its long standing director Michael Grandage.  It has long been speculated that Mr Grandage’s next stop would be at the helm of the National Theatre – we shall see. But what is clear is that there’ll be plenty of theatrical hand wringing and gossiping as to who will take over at the venerable Covent Garden institution.  Shenton has a few ideas.  My money’s on David Miliband.

Good week for the Royal Court’s brilliant Clybourne Park.  West End Transfer to the Wyndhams, sans Martin Freeman, avec Sarah Goldberg and most importantly avec Sophie Thomson. C’est bon.

Bad week for Mark Shenton, who’s very very busy. But then he’s also in New York, so we don’t need to feel tooo sorry for him.