Theater Memories Part 8: London

Simon Russell Beale 
in Tom Stoppard's Jumpers

Our next category of theater memories after summer stock, national tours, out-of-town try-outs, regional and ushering is London. I have been to the British capital five times from the 1990s into the 2000s and tried to cram in as much theater as possible every time I went. The first time was only a few days before I went on to Paris and Amsterdam. The second time was during a heat wave and I got stuck at the airport on the way back because Saddam Hussein decided to invade Kuwait, throwing everything into chaos. The fourth time, my husband Jerry and I went and then toured Scotland and the Lake district. Then I went with my dad on the first stop on a trip around the world. We were only there for two days, but I did see two shows. When I went with my whole family the fifth time, they couldn't understand why I wanted to see 8 or 9 shows in a week instead of visiting museums and having high tea at Claridge's. Here are the shows I can recall:

Tom Stoppard's Jumpers with Simon Russell Beale (pictured) when it transferred to Broadway, I was surrounded by matinee ladies who couldn't make head or tail of it, but I thought it was brilliant.

A Madhouse in Goa with Vanessa Redgrave; Hamlet with Toby Stephens (Maggie Smith's son); Richard III/King Lear in rep with Brian Cox and Ian McKellen (saw both on the same day and felt like someone had taken a club marked "Shakespeare" and hit me over the head with it); Guys and Dolls with Imelda Staunton as Adelaide and Clarke Peters as Guy Masterson (really loved it); His Girl Friday, John Guare's adaptation of The Front Page and the movie script for His Girl Friday (Margaret Tyzack stands out in my memory); The Shaughran with Stephan Rea; Absolutely! Perhaps (an adaptation of Pirandello's Right You Are!) with Joan Plowright; Glenda Jackson as Mother Courage (pictured); Maxim Gorky's Barbarians with Louise Jameson (Leela from Doctor Who); The Man Who Came to Dinner with John Wood; Stoppard's The Invention of Love; The Misanthrope; The School for Scandal with Prunella Scales of Fawlty

Glenda Jackson as Mother Courage

Towers as Mrs. Candour; a revival of Absurd Person Singular; Jerry Springer: The Opera with David Soul's understudy; Richard Nelson's Some Americans Abroad (also enjoyed it when Lincoln Center did it); John Doyle's Sweeney Todd set in a madhouse (worked slightly better than on Broadway because there were more cast members as doctors so it was clearer we were in a nuthouse); The Madness of George W., a satire on the Bush administration after the invasion of Iraq, mostly modeled on Dr. Strangelove; Festen, a drama about incest which worked much better in London than on Broadway; Playhouse Creatures, a play about the Restoration; a musical version of Metropolis which stopped only 20 into the performance because the massive mechanical scenery broke down, Brian Blessed announced the show had to be cancelled; Ibsen's The Wild Duck with Lionel Jeffries.

At Stratford-on-Avon: a wonderful production of The Tamer Tamed, a sequel to the Taming of the Shrew.

In the Lake District in Keswick: a so-so production of Blithe Spirit.