| Gray Matter | Theatre |
Cinema plus help Moyles to gain on Wogan 3:19pm Wed 7 May 08
"Titans head for battle of breakfast radio," said a headline last week in The Times. Who are those titans? Radio 2's Terry Wogan, it would seem, and his Radio 1 rival Chris Moyles (who is at least of titanic proportions). They are struggling to see who can gain the largest breakfast audience. Sir Terry at present has 8.1 million, while Moyles is closing up with 7.72 million. | Dara O'Briain: New Theatre 2:53pm Wed 7 May 08
There is an explosive quality to this magnificent stand-up. Dara O'Briain began his set at machine-gun pace and simply did not let up for a moment. Anyone who knows this burly Irishman from his presenting the admirable Mock The Week on television has seen only the acorn of his talent; the packed New Theatre audience saw the finished, oak-tree, product. |
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Our critics praised while London's reviewers damned 3:16pm Wed 7 May 08
The 50th anniversary of the first performances of Harold Pinter's The Birthday Party is being celebrated by a new production of the play which opens on Monday at the Lyric, Hammersmith. Now recognised as one of the 20th century landmarks in European theatre, the piece was a notorious flop when first aired at the same theatre in 1958. National critics, to their shame, put the boot in mercilessly. The Guardian called it "half-gibberish and lunatic ravings"; the Daily Telegraph pointed to an author "who wallows in symbols and revels in obscurity". | A Doll's House, Oxford Playhouse 2:38pm Wed 7 May 08
One of the more downbeat entries in the theatrical canon, A Doll's House is nevertheless a perfect slice of Scandinavian miserablism. It focuses on a young housewife, Nora Helmer (Tilly Gaunt), who seems to be having her cake and eating it for all to see. Indeed, she has a doting husband, three wonderful children and a large house. However it soon emerges that the cheerfulness she aggressively parades around her guests is a façade, and she is desperately unhappy and growing ever more mentally imbalanced. Her personal scales of sanity threaten to tip right over when a secret she has been hiding from her husband for several years comes back to haunt her. |
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