This week on the Evening Standard Theatre Podcast, Conversations with Friends star Alison Oliver joins Nick Curtis to talk about playing the title role in Portia Coughlan, opening soon at the Almeida Theatre.
This is Oliver’s latest in a series of eye-catching stage roles this year including Women Beware the Devil, also at the Almeida, and Dancing at Lughnasa at the National Theatre, both of which we reviewed on this podcast.
She talks about the challenges of performing this modern Irish classic play, studying drama during the pandemic, and whether she feels like a Londoner yet after moving from her native Ireland.
Nick Curtis and Nick Clark review Stephen Sondheim’s Old Friends at the Gielgud Theatre. This glitzy revue show features a compilation of some the legendary composer and lyricist’s best loved tunes and features Broadway stars Bernadette Peters and Lea Salonga, as well as Janie Dee, Bonnie Langford and Joanna Riding.
For our second review, Nancy and Nick Curtis discuss Close Up: The Twiggy Musical at the Menier Chocolate Factory, written and directed by Ben Elton. This is a musical about the life and times of Lesley Lawson, aka Twiggy, as she seeks to make it in the modelling world.
Nancy, Nick and Nick also discuss the week’s big news: the announcement of the 67th Evening Standard Theatre Awards. The ceremony will be hosted by the newspaper’s proprietor, Lord Lebedev, with the help of co-hosts David Harewood, Vanessa Kirby, Sir Ian McKellen and Sienna Miller.
They respond to Just Stop Oil’s Les Misérables-style protests on the actual Les Misérables stage, plus Nick Clark chats about his recent trip to see Noises Off for the first time, and Nick Curtis got in to see Shooting Hedda Gabler - we interviewed the show’s star Antonia Thomas and writer Nina Segal last week.
Listen above, find us on Apple, Spotify or wherever you stream your podcasts.
