#theatre royal haymarket

[ingravinoveritas]

I find these very awkward just cos there no smile coming from both of them at all which make me think something isn't right with recent events that happen also something defo brewing cos here it look like they undercomforable and doesn't look like neither Arms are around each other neither. This defo looks cringe cos literally no smile from either since recent events that happen

I will use this as an update to this post from earlier, to clarify that it seems Michael was at A View From the Bridge tonight, rather than Kiss Me, Kate.

It turns out that Callum Scott Howells (who played Owen in Michael's directorial debut, The Way) was in the play, and I'm going to put up a few pictures of Michael with Callum and Dominic West that pretty much say it all:

The last one is a particular favorite for oh-so-many reasons (hello, arms, and also twink/Daddy vibes...), but I'm just sort of floored at the difference between these pictures and the pictures with Anna. If people are unwilling to see that difference/how unhappy they both seem at this point--to where neither Michael nor AL look like they're even trying in these pics--I'm not sure what else can really be said.

All I can say is that Michael's face is visibly lit up in the picture with Dominic and the pictures with Callum, which makes it more noticeable when his face is not lit up otherwise. And I know we could say there are a hundred reasons why he looks so sullen in the first set of pictures (he's tired, travel issues, etc.), but what takes this into the realm of purposeful for me is seeing him with the other people at the after party. I think Michael is an incredibly good and talented actor, but when he's being himself, he is never going to pretend to feel something he doesn't feel, or to pretend not to feel something that he does. And that seems clearer than ever in these pictures.

Could I be completely wrong about all of this? Of course. But I'm hard-pressed to see how anyone can keep ignoring what is plainly right in front of us, and has been for some time. I'd be glad to hear from my followers as well with your thoughts...

[kendallville]

I'm in love with Sarah Snook

[willstafford]

Hurry Up and Wait

WAITING FOR GODOT Theatre Royal Haymarket, London, Wednesday 25th September 2024 Long before I read this play during the first year of my Drama degree, I encountered an artistic expression of alienation from existence.  I’m talking about the vultures in Disney’s The Jungle Book (1967).  These mop-topped scavengers have a scene in which they struggle to find something to fill their time.  “What…

[milliondollarbaby87]

A View from the Bridge (West End) Review

[brigittemarlt]

The man who has broken the code. Alan Turing  is one of Derek’s most memorable portrayal. Emotionally intense. Turing should have been a hero of his time. He was finally a victim of Intolerance. He has contributed to save mankind. And mankind has betrayed him. What Derek did here is more than an artistic performance. It is also a personal tribute to a great man. He has highly contributed by his talent to put Turing’s work and life into light and given him the recognition that he deserved (photo : Martha Swope)

[myfavoritepeterotoole]

Man and Superman directed by Patrick Dromgoole Theatre Royal Haymarket, London 1982

Peter O'Toole as Jack Tanner

[girlonfilms]

Succession's Sarah Snook heads to the West End

Sarah Snook, best known for playing Shiv Roy in Succession, is returning to the London stage at the start of 2024. Continue reading Untitled

[stilettochat]

From @whishawupdates:

Pre-Sale now open for WAITING FOR GODOT.

In Theatre Royal Haymarket 13th September - 14th December 2024.

[citizenscreen]

Judi Dench and Maggie Smith during rehearsals for the play 'The Breath of Life' at the Theatre Royal Haymarket in London., 2002.

[thealogie]

Similar to your Sheen/Tennant dilemma I will be trying my hardest to get same-day Macbeth tickets for October 5th and if I can’t I’ll be walking two steps over to the royal Haymarket theatre to see Waiting for Godot…I’d consider it a win-win situation at least 🤷‍♀️

Very mature of you but unfortunately if i don't get to see michael sheen perform this acclaimed play by one of the greatest playwrights from my home country I will not view it as a win win. I will behave very badly. I will not be held responsible for my actions.

[invisibleicewands]

A View From The Bridge at the Theatre Royal Haymarket - 04/06/2024

[amphibious-thing]

Hi! I'm working on a queer history project, and since you seem to have pretty good knowledge of D'Eon's life, I'd love to know if you have any thoughts on which moments of her life would be the most painting/drawing worthy! I need it to capture her Vibe tm

Ok I've been thinking about this and I have a few possibilities:

The Fencing Match Between d'Eon and Saint-Georges

This is almost too obvious. But it's iconic. She was wearing her iconic black dress. It shows her as the very capable fencer she was. It's just very d'Eon.

On the 9th of April 1787 d'Eon fenced Saint-Georges at Carlton House.

The London Chronicle gave the following account of the match in their 12-14 April, 1787 issue:

Mademoiselle D’Eon exhibited a curious spectacle at the assault which was performed before the Prince of Wales last Monday. The novelty of a Lady in petticoats engaging the most experienced and able masters of the noble science of defence, excited universal pleasantry. Those who were not perfectly acquainted with the Chevalier’s history stood in amazement, and even such as had formerly known her en culottes, were not a little surprized at the skill she displayed in fencing with Mr. St. George. Her petticoats did not incommode her in the least, and it was very clear that this retired Captain of Dragoons is much more expert at the riporte than a curtsey, and handles a foil with more grace than she does a fan. The assault upon the whole proved highly entertaining, and the satisfaction of the company was not a little encreased by the affability and engaging condescension of the Prince of Wales, than whom no man possesses more the spirit of elegant hospitality, and the captivating manners of the polished gentleman.

John Buchan Telfer reprints the following contemporary newspaper article in his biography on d’Eon:

The most remarkable occurrence of the fencing match at Carlton House was the assault between Monsieur de Saint-George and Mademoiselle D'Eon, the latter though encumbered, as she humorously declared herself, with three petticoats, that suited her sex much better than her spirit, not only parried skilfully all the thrusts of her powerful antagonist, but even touched him by what is termed a coup de temps, which all his dexterity could not ward off. We hear that a celebrated painter has undertaken to hit off the semblance and attitude of the hero and heroine in this very interesting scene. Mademoiselle D'Eon had modesty enough, on her hitting Monsieur de Saint-George, to set it down to his complaisance; but the latter candidly declared that he had done all in his power to ward against it. A gentleman present assures us that nothing could equal the quickness of the repartee, especially considering that the modem Pallas is nearly in her sixtieth year, and had to cope with a young man equally skilful and vigorous.

The painter referred to in this article is Alexandre-Auguste Robineau who painted this depiction of the match.

[The Fencing-Match between the Chevalier de Saint-George and the Chevalier d'Eon, c. 1787-9 by Alexandre-Auguste Robineau, via the Royal Collection Trust.]

If you're going to do this one I'd consider using the Mather Brown portrait of Saint-Georges as a reference. Saint-Georges himself said "c'est si resemblant c'est affreux" [it's so lifelike it's frightful]. (The Chevalier de Saint-Georges by Gabriel Banat p342)

[Monsieur de St. George, c. 1788, print by William Ward after Mather Brown, via The British Museum.]

A Different Fencing Match

To mix it up you could depict her fencing Mrs. Bateman whom d'Eon had a professional partnership with. D’Eon complimented Bateman’s fencing skills describing her as “a youngling in her nest, that would rise and support the honour of female heroism in England.” (Diary or Woodfall's Register, 18 Jan 1793)

On Thursday the 30th of May 1793 Mrs. Bateman held a benefit night at the King’s Theatre in Haymarket. There was a performance of All in the Wrong, Mrs. Bateman played Lady Restless. The Morning Chronicle reports “After the play, the Chevalier D’Eon in generosity of friendship, displayed her wonderful talent in fencing. She first pushed carte and tierce with her youthful imitator, Mrs. Bateman.” (31 May 1793)

[Mrs Bateman, print c.1793 by Marino or Mariano Bovi (Bova), after Ludwig Guttenbrun, via the National Portrait Gallery]

You could also depict her fencing a gentleman in her stays and petticoats. D'Eon finding woman's clothes restrictive when fencing started to strip down to allow for more mobility. This incident caused a bit of a commotion in the English press.

After her fencing display with Mrs. Bateman at the King’s Theatre in Haymarket d'Eon fenced with a gentleman, in preparation she “pulled off her jacket, and thus stripped to her stays, with her handkerchief loose over them, and short petticoats that did not come half way down her legs”. (The Times, 31 May 1793)

The Sun was scandalised writing that “the indecent circumstance of her stripping herself to her stays, preparatory to her fencing, gave a very general disgust.” And while The Times conceded credit to “the Lady’s science and activity” they were horrified “to see an old masculine woman of sixty thus attired, and publicly exposing herself on the stage,” declaring that it was “an indecency which we shall never suffer to pass by without a very severe animadversion.” (The Sun, 31 May 1793; The Times, 31 May 1793)

Her Presentation at Versailles

After d'Eon returned to France in 1777 she was presented to the King and Queen at Versailles. While she had already been telling people she was a woman before this point and was already legally acknowledged to be a woman this was important because it was the first time she was being publicly acknowledged by Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette as a woman in a formal context.

On the 23rd of November 1777 Mémoires secrets pour servir à l'histoire de la République des Lettres en France reported:

Il doit y avoir aujourd'hui un concours de monde prodigieux à Versailles. Ensin la présentation du Chevalier d'Eon represent son sexe véritable, qui est celui de femme, annoncée depuis longtems, va s'effectuer dans son nouveau costume. Mlle. d'Eon continuera à porter la croix de St. Louis attachée à son côté [Today there must be a prodigious concourse of people at Versailles. Thus the presentation of the Chevalier d'Eon represents his real sex, which is that of woman, announced for a long time, will take place in his new costume. Mlle d'Eon will continue to wear the cross of St. Louis attached to her side]*

In the weeks leading up to the event d'Eon was prepared by Marie Antoinette's marchande de modes Mademoiselle Bertin. Bertin worked not only on d'Eon's dress but to teach her how to move in it. At the French court women were required to wear the grand habit de cour which was a lot for d'Eon to get used to:

La plus grande peine de M.ˡˡᵉ Bertin fut de me faire attraper la marche. la demarche, & la contremarche d'une femme à la Cour, de me faire avancer & reculer noblement en robe longue & deplyèe sur un vaste panier qui à lui seul remplissoit la monitié de ma chambre. Mais l'aimable & doucereuse Bertin aprés s'etre insinueé fort avant dans mon amitié, me fit avancer & réculer comme elle voulut, elle me fit faire toute ce quelle jugea convenable aux habitudes, aux usages & à la décence qu'on demandoit en moi. [The greatest difficulty for Mademoiselle Bertin was to make me learn the march, dismarch, & countermarch of a woman of the Court, to make me move forward & backward nobly in a long gown spread over an enormous hoop which on its own filled half of my chamber. But the kind & sweet Bertin after being strongly insinuated in my friendship before, made me more forward & back as she willed, she made me do all that she thought proper to the habits customs & decency that was required of me.]**

D'Eon complained that the first time Mademoiselle Bertin dressed her it took four hours and and ten minutes:

Je vous dirai que ma premiere toilette entre les mains de la chaste Bertin & de ses modestes Aides-de Camp, fut accomplie en moins de quatre heures dix minutes! juger de mon tourment & de ma patience! [I will tell you that my first toilette at the hands of the chaste Bertin & her modest Aides-de-Camp, was completed in less than four hours ten minutes! Judge my torment & my patience!]**

In repose to d'Eon's complaining Mademoiselle Bertin told her:

Mon brave capitaine ne jurez pas. Le jour que vous serez presentée au Roi & à la Renie, vous serez bien heureuse, si je ne vous fais pas lever à quatre heures du matin, pour être prête à une heure aprés midi [My brave captain do not curse. The day that you will be presented to the King & to the Queen, you will be very happy, if I do not make you rise at four in the morning to be ready at one in the afternoon]**

Of course we know d'Eon was wearing her cross of St. Louis but we unfortunately don't have a detailed description of her presentation gown. In her autobiographical writings d'Eon says it was made of embroidered white satin. Kimberly Chrisman-Campbell in her article Dressing d'Eon comments that this seems odd as "etiquette stipulated that only debutantes in mourning could wear white, rather than black, which was reserved for presentation at court, mourning, and some religious habits in the eighteenth century." She suggested d'Eon may be "literally whitewashing" history but concedes that it is possible that her "presentation coincided with one of the frequent and somewhat arbitrary periods of court mourning." (p104)

During the time d'Eon spent at Versailles she had to wear both formal and informal dress as dictated by the Court calendar. She commented that "Le deshabillé me convient fort, mais quand il ma faut porter le grand habbillement [sic] avec ajustement & parure c'est pour moi un grand tourment" [The informal dress suited me very well, but when I had to wear the formal dress with accessories and jewels, it was a great torment for me]**.

*this was translated by google translate. If anyone wants to add a better translation I'd love that.

**All of these quotes are from d'Eon's autobiographical writings which are all quoted and translated in Dressing d'Eon by Kimberly Chrisman-Campbell.

[willstafford]

Window on the World

ACCIDENTAL DEATH OF AN ANARCHIST Theatre Royal Haymarket, London, 29th July 2023 In 1970, Dario Fo and Franca Rame presented this masterpiece in response to the real-life death by defenestration of a railway worker while in custody of Italian police.  Now revived for the London stage in this new adaptation by Tom Basden, the issues raised by the play could not be more pertinent.  You only have…

[stephensmithuk]

The Retired Colourman

Published in 1926, this was placed last in the Case-book compilation, although it was not the last Holmes story Doyle published. That is "Shoscombe Old Place", which we have yet to cover.

A colourman is someone who makes and sell paint. The term is very little used these days.

Lewisham is a London suburb located six miles from Charing Cross; it had transferred from Kent to London in the 1889 creation of the London County Council and today forms its own London Borough.

The Coptic Pope at the time was Cyril V, who reigned from 1874 to 1927, the longest serving head of the Coptic Orthodox Church.

The Theatre Royal Haymarket was opened in 1720 and remains in use today as a theatre. It's currently running a production of Noises Off and next year will play host to The Picture of Dorian Gray, which is going to see Sarah Snook play all 26 roles.

Blackheath is a suburban station today served by electric trains operated by Southeastern from Victoria, Charing Cross and Cannon Street.

Lothario dates back to Don Quixote as a name, but its use for a serial seducer of women comes from the 1703 Nicholas Rowe play The Fair Penitent.

Crockford's Clerical Directory is a book listing clergy in the UK and Ireland.

Little Purlington is fictitous, but Frinton is real. Now Frinton-on-Sea, it is located on the Essex coast and by 1927 was attracting regular high society visitors. Former residents of note include Deborah Watling, who played Victoria Waterfield in Doctor Who. Due to its reputation as a place to retire to, it became the subject of a common joke "Harwich for the Continent, Frinton for the incontinent", the former being an LNER advertising slogan. Probably not a good idea to make that gag locally though.

Third Class trains had originally been ones with wooden seating, but by this time, Second Class had been abolished and the former passengers were now generally in upholstered carriages. Third Class became Second Class in 1956 on British Railways and is now Standard Class.

I have been unable to find when cyanide pills became a thing. Doing a search for them gives you the number of a suicide prevention line first, which is quite reasonable.

Broadmoor is a high-security psychiatric hospital in Berkshire, completed in 1863. Notable patients have included Ronald 'Ronnie' Kray, 'Yorkshire Ripper' Peter Sutcliffe and Edward Oxford, a barman who tried to kill Queen Victoria. Until 2018, it maintained sirens to be used in case of an escape.

[justforbooks]

The actor Michael Jayston, who has died aged 88, was a distinguished performer on stage and screen. The roles that made his name were as the doomed Tsar Nicholas II of Russia in Franklin Schaffner’s sumptuous account of the last days of the Romanovs in Nicholas and Alexandra (1971), and as Alec Guinness’s intelligence minder in John Le Carré’s Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy on television in 1979. He never made a song and dance about himself and perhaps as a consequence was not launched in Hollywood, as were many of his contemporaries.

Before these two parts, he had already played a key role in The Power Game on television and Henry Ireton, Cromwell’s son-in-law, in Ken Hughes’s fine Cromwell (1969), with Richard Harris in the title role and Guinness as King Charles I. And this followed five years with the Royal Shakespeare Company including a trip to Broadway in Harold Pinter’s The Homecoming, in which he replaced Michael Bryant as Teddy, the brother who returns to the US and leaves his wife in London to “take care of” his father and siblings.

Jayston, who was not flamboyantly good-looking but clearly and solidly attractive, with a steely, no-nonsense, demeanour and a steady, piercing gaze, could “do” the Pinter menace as well as anyone, and that cast – who also made the 1973 movie directed by Peter Hall – included Pinter’s then wife, Vivien Merchant, as well as Paul Rogers and Ian Holm.

Jayston had found a replacement family in the theatre. Born Michael James in Nottingham, he was the only child of Myfanwy (nee Llewelyn) and Vincent; his father died of pneumonia, following a serious accident on the rugby field, when Michael was one, and his mother died when he was a barely a teenager. He was then brought up by his grandmother and an uncle, and found himself involved in amateur theatre while doing national service in the army; he directed a production of The Happiest Days of Your Life.

He continued in amateur theatre while working for two years as a trainee accountant for the National Coal Board and in Nottingham fish market, before winning a scholarship, aged 23, to the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London, where he was five years older than everyone else on his course. He played in rep in Bangor, Northern Ireland, and at the Salisbury Playhouse before joining the Bristol Old Vic for two seasons in 1963.

At the RSC from 1965, he enjoyed good roles – Oswald in Ghosts, Bertram in All’s Well That Ends Well, Laertes to David Warner’s Hamlet – and was Demetrius in Hall’s film of A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1968), with Warner as Lysander in a romantic foursome with Diana Rigg and Helen Mirren.

But his RSC associate status did not translate itself into the stardom of, say, Alan Howard, Warner, Judi Dench, Ian Richardson and others at the time. He was never fazed or underrated in this company, but his career proceeded in a somewhat nebulous fashion, and Nicholas and Alexandra, for all its success and ballyhoo, did not bring him offers from the US.

Instead, he played Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Lewis Carroll) in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1972), a so-so British musical film version with music and lyrics by John Barry and Don Black, with Michael Crawford as the White Rabbit and Peter Sellers the March Hare. In 1979 he was a colonel in Zulu Dawn, a historically explanatory prequel to the earlier smash hit Zulu.

As an actor he seemed not to be a glory-hunter. Instead, in the 1980s, he turned in stylish and well-received leading performances in Noël Coward’s Private Lives, at the Duchess, opposite Maria Aitken (1980); as Captain von Trapp in the first major London revival of The Sound of Music at the Apollo Victoria in 1981, opposite Petula Clark; and, best of all, as Mirabell, often a thankless role, in William Gaskill’s superb 1984 revival, at Chichester and the Haymarket, of The Way of the World, by William Congreve, opposite Maggie Smith as Millamant.

Nor was he averse to taking over the leading roles in plays such as Peter Shaffer’s Equus (1973) or Brian Friel’s Dancing at Lughnasa (1992), roles first occupied in London by Alec McCowen. He rejoined the National Theatre – he had been Gratiano with Laurence Olivier and Joan Plowright in The Merchant of Venice directed by Jonathan Miller in 1974 – to play a delightful Home Counties Ratty in the return of Alan Bennett’s blissful, Edwardian The Wind in the Willows in 1994.

On television, he was a favourite side-kick of David Jason in 13 episodes of David Nobbs’s A Bit of a Do (1989) – as the solicitor Neville Badger in a series of social functions and parties across West Yorkshire – and in four episodes of The Darling Buds of May (1992) as Ernest Bristow, the brewery owner. He appeared again with Jason in a 1996 episode of Only Fools and Horses.

He figured for the first time on fan sites when he appeared in the 1986 Doctor Who season The Trial of a Time Lord as Valeyard, the prosecuting counsel. In the new millennium he passed through both EastEnders and Coronation Street before bolstering the most lurid storyline of all in Emmerdale (2007-08): he was Donald de Souza, an unpleasant old cove who fell out with his family and invited his disaffected wife to push him off a cliff on the moors in his wheelchair, but died later of a heart attack.

By now living on the south coast, Jayston gravitated easily towards Chichester as a crusty old colonel – married to Wendy Craig – in Coward’s engaging early play Easy Virtue, in 1999, and, three years later, in 2002, as a hectored husband, called Hector, to Patricia Routledge’s dotty duchess in Timberlake Wertenbaker’s translation of Jean Anouilh’s Léocadia under the title Wild Orchids.

And then, in 2007, he exuded a tough spirituality as a confessor to David Suchet’s pragmatic pope-maker in The Last Confession, an old-fashioned but gripping Vatican thriller of financial and political finagling told in flashback. Roger Crane’s play transferred from Chichester to the Haymarket and toured abroad with a fine panoply of senior British actors, Jayston included.

After another collaboration with Jason, and Warner, in the television movie Albert’s Memorial (2009), a touching tale of old war-time buddies making sure one of them is buried on the German soil where first they met, and a theatre tour in Ronald Harwood’s musicians-in-retirement Quartet in 2010 with Susannah York, Gwen Taylor and Timothy West, he made occasional television appearances in Midsomer Murders, Doctors and Casualty. Last year he provided an introduction to a re-run of Tinker Tailor on BBC Four. He seemed always to be busy, available for all seasons.

As a keen cricketer (he also played darts and chess), Jayston was a member of the MCC and the Lord’s Taverners. After moving to Brighton, he became a member of Sussex county cricket club and played for Rottingdean, where he was also president.

His first two marriages – to the actor Lynn Farleigh in 1965 and the glass engraver Heather Sneddon in 1970 – ended in divorce. From his second marriage he had two sons, Tom and Ben, and a daughter, Li-an. In 1979 he married Ann Smithson, a nurse, and they had a son, Richard, and daughter, Katie.

🔔 Michael Jayston (Michael James), actor, born 29 October 1935; died 5 February 2024

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at Just for Books…?

[myfavoritepeterotoole]

Man and Superman directed by Patrick Dromgoole Theatre Royal, Haymarket, London 1982

Peter O'Toole as Jack Tanner