Le monde des musicals

Version 1

Eurovision (1993-11-Vaudeville Theatre-London)

Type de série: Original
Théâtre: Vaudeville Theatre (Londres - Angleterre)
Flop
Durée : 2 semaines
Nombre : 22 représentations
Première Preview : Tuesday 02 November 1993
Première : Wednesday 10 November 1993
Dernière : Saturday 27 November 1993
Mise en scène : Tim Luscombe •
Chorégraphie : Richard Sampson •
Producteur :
Avec : James Dreyfus (Gary), Charles Edwards (Kevin) , Christopher James (Antinous), Simon Dutton (Hadrian), Anita Dobson (Katia Europa), Grant Russell (Sergio), Michael Matus (Andreas), Carmen Gomez, Darren McNeill, Duncan Wisbey, Thierry Harcourt
Commentaires : This extremely silly (and for many, enjoyable!) spoof of the Eurovision Song Contest had the merit of some funny parody songs sending up the whole Eurovision style, but with its peculiar story mixing togas and flared trousers, and the fact that the Eurovision Contest is already a parody of itself, the almost unanimous critical verdict was “nul point”, or at best, “un et demi”. (The show had originated in the fringe Drill Hall in the previous year). It came off within three weeks, having lost some £275,000. It was described by Jack Tinker in the “Daily Mail” as violating every clause of the Geneva Convention..

Version 2

Private lives (1990-09-Aldwych Theatre-Londres)

Type de série: Revival
Théâtre: Aldwych Theatre (Londres - Angleterre)
Durée : 4 mois 1 semaine
Nombre :
Première Preview : Wednesday 19 September 1990
Première : Wednesday 19 September 1990
Dernière : Saturday 26 January 1991
Mise en scène : Tim Luscombe •
Chorégraphie :
Producteur :
Avec : Joan Collins (Amanda Prynne), Keith Baxter (Elyot Chase), Mary Pegler (Louise (a Maid)), Sara Crowe (Sybil Chase), Edward Duke (Victor Prynne)

Version 3

Rat Trap (The) (2006-11-Finborough Theatre-Londres)

Type de série: Revival
Théâtre: Finborough Theatre (Londres - Angleterre)
Durée : 3 semaines
Nombre :
Première Preview : Inconnu
Première : Tuesday 28 November 2006
Dernière : Saturday 23 December 2006
Mise en scène : Tim Luscombe •
Chorégraphie :
Producteur :
Avec : Federay Holmes, Catherine Hamilton, Gregory Finnegan, Steven O’Neill, Kathryn Sumner, Heather Chasen, Olivia Darnley
Presse : "On stage in the West End at the Finborough Theatre after 80 years offstage"
Evening Standard ES Magazine

“Heroic effort by a young Coward...Written in 1918, when he was only 18 and not revived since a brief London run in 1926, Noel Coward's The Rat Trap is an absolute revelation.” Nicholas de Jongh, Evening Standard

“Tim Luscombe’s revival for the Finborough’s Forgotten Voices season makes for a most rewarding evening”
Jeremy Kingston, The Times

“This may be Coward juvenilia, but for sheer energy, engrossing performances and entertainment value the production knocks spots off almost every other straight play in London at the moment, and is sure to lead to further revivals or, better still, a transfer.”
John Thaxter, British Theatre Guide

“It’s certainly worth catching Tim Luscombe’s excellent production, unless you want to wait another 90 years for the chance.”
Alastair Smith, The Stage

“Tim Luscombe’s intense production makes ideal use of the Finborough’s tiny round space” Caroline McGinn, Time Out

“The rich entertainment provided by Tim Luscombe's production.”
Michael Billington, The Guardian

“Played in the round on the tightest of spaces, Luscombe and his cast vividly re-create an unjustly forgotten drama that is both like and interestingly unlike the plays that followed.”
Jeremy Kingston, The Times

“The [ forgotten voices season ]…This first time revival of 1926 Noel Coward play The Rat Trap is undoubtedly one of its high points...It provides some wonderful moments of theatre, especially in its more argumentative passages”
Alastair Smith, The Stage

“There hasn’t been anything twee or stuffy about any of the season of Forgotten Voices. They all demand to be heard, for their style, their wit, their unquenchable curiosity about people.”
C J Sheridan, Rogues and Vagabonds

“With aphoristic, witty shafts…Coward reminds us how the pleasures of free-love and adultery were lavishly sampled before London's naughty 1920s.”
Nicholas de Jongh, Evening Standard

“A fascinating revival...very interesting and well worth seeing...It is an astonishingly accomplished and psychologically mature work” C J Sheridan, Rogues and Vagabonds

“Its post-mortem of the death of creative love in marriage is shocking and pertinent”
Caroline McGinn, Time Out

“This is the first play Coward wrote, in 1918, when he was no older than the century…the marital troubles of his central couple show a firm grasp of the realities and an instinct for how to dramatise them.”
Jeremy Kingston, The Times

“This very interesting play. I applaud the Finborough for having released it from obscurity and Tim Luscombe for his brilliant direction… Anyone who is interested in Theatre should go and see it and so should those who aren’t – it is an opportunity to relish a piece of theatrical history which should not be missed.”
David Munro, IndieLondon.com

“Tim Luscombe’s fluid direction, which carefully balances stylish comedy of manners with truthful emotional psychology”
C J Sheridan, Rogues and Vagabonds

“Staged in the round, the actors barely inches from some of the audience, it proves an intense experience and the cast do not disappoint even at such close quarters.”
Alastair Smith, The Stage

“Catherine Hamilton, a fascinating find recently seen in The Madras House at the Orange Tree, conveys Sheila’s mixed emotions with beautifully expressive eyes and a controlled but thrilling vocal delivery”
John Thaxter, British Theatre Guide

“Catherine Hamilton is a real find as Sheila”
Michael Billington, The Guardian

“Catherine Hamilton’s Sheila becomes increasingly moving and real”
Jeremy Kingston, The Times

“Well led by Catherine Hamilton and Gregory Finnegan as the central pair”
Alastair Smith, The Stage

“Gregory Finnegan…an attractive, forceful portrayal”
John Thaxter, British Theatre Guide

“The supporting cast is equally strong...A dashing Sapphic performance by Federay Holmes” John Thaxter, British Theatre Guide

“Played with delicious wickedness and bang in period by Olivia Darnley”
C J Sheridan, Rogues and Vagabonds

“The throwaway wit and flyaway gestures of Federay Holmes’s Olive”
Jeremy Kingston, The Times

“The casting of Federay Holmes as the couple’s progressive friend Olive brings the androgynous elegance of Coward’s mature persona into his youthful play - her languid drawl and her judgments are ahead of their time but, like Coward’s wit, are compassionate and candid as well as oblique.”
Caroline McGinn, Time Out

“Kathryn Sumner is radiantly beautiful in Grecian splendour as the mellifluously voiced Bohemian writer Naomi”
C J Sheridan, Rogues and Vagabonds

“Heather Chasen and Olivia Darnley’s vivid characterizations”
C J Sheridan, Rogues and Vagabonds

“The production’s highlights come from the well-realised supporting cast - Federay Holmes’ gossip journalist, acting as Sheila’s confidante, Olivia Darnley as the coquette who convinces Keld to play away and Heather Chasen’s hugely entertaining…servant.” Alastair Smith, The Stage

“Even in early Coward, the minor figures also possess an abundant life neatly caught by Olivia Darnley as a predatory ex-chorus girl and Heather Chasen as a trundling maid announcing "marriage is a snare".” Michael Billington, The Guardian

“Sublimely recreated by Heather Chasen in a classic comedy maid performance that should be enshrined for its focus, reality and timing”
C J Sheridan, Rogues and Vagabonds

“As the shrewd, down-to-earth maid, Heather Chasen shuffles around in lace-up shoes and a grim cardigan almost down to her knees, while wearing an expression of determined inscrutability. Her magnificent vintage performance - quiet, truthful, comic - is the evening's authentic Cowardian delight.”
Nicholas de Jongh, Evening Standard

“Heather Chasen as Burrage the maid, put upon and put down, gave the usual splendid supporting performance we have come to expect from this very accomplished actress.” David Munro, IndieLondon.com

“The performance of the evening is a sly turn by Heather Chasen, with little more than forty lines or so, playing the shrewd, long-suffering cook Burrage, an Edwardian relic with a cut-glass accent that renders ‘marriage’ as ‘merridge’ to devastating comedy effect, while managing to tell her innermost thoughts with the merest flicker of an eyelid. Do catch this superb veteran at the top of her form.”
John Thaxter, British Theatre Guide

“These rediscoveries open your mind to all sorts of connected historical facts that it’s impossible not to be intrigued by; it’s a sort of living theatre museum; a cabinet of treasures from the theatre of the recent past, the past that our theatrical consciousness is built on”
C J Sheridan, Rogues and Vagabonds

“Unseen in London since 1926, this early Noel Coward play is something of a turn-up for the books. Coward wrote it when he was 18, but already you see him, as a precocious stripling, sketching out the theme that was to haunt his later work: the idea that talent is best fulfilled by shedding emotional commitments...What is fascinating is detecting hints of the Coward to come. The battle of the two fractious egotists clearly anticipates the cushion-throwing tantrums of Elyot and Amanda in Private Lives…Coward also prefigures his later ability to give life to eccentrically named off-stage characters: we never see Clara Dewlap or Evangeline Featherstone, but we believe in them.”
Michael Billington, The Guardian