Sex and the City star Sarah Jessica Parker praised London’s "exquisite" transport system as she made her West End debut.
The actress, who is starring in Plaza Suite at the Savoy Theatre with her husband Matthew Broderick, said the couple had become firm fans of the Underground — but were less enthusiastic about the opening hours of the capital’s restaurants.
Speaking to the Standard at the play’s opening on Sunday night, Parker said she wanted “to be completely conversant” with the Tube, adding: “I want to know Jubilee, Piccadilly, Northern.
“I want to know Edgware, I want to know all of it, Barnet, High Hill (sic), whatever. I want all of it and I even found a map store that takes me back to the early maps of the Forties. So your system here is so exquisite, you have great public transport.”
The play, about three different couples staying in the same New York hotel room, is also Parker’s West End debut — but she explained it was not her first appearance in a London theatre, having come to the capital as a child star.
She said: "I rehearsed my first Broadway play here but that doesn’t count. My first Broadway play was a production of The Innocents and Harold Pinter directed it and Claire Bloom starred in it.
"We rehearsed in London because Harold and Claire were here and then we rehearsed it on the stage of the Drury Lane Theatre which was quite something, this was 1976 and then we brought the show to the US."
The couple, who have been married since 1997 and have three children, said they had never been able to work together before because of childcare issues — Broderick said the couple had actively tried to “not be on the same schedule so somebody could be home”.
He said the couple did not "talk much about the show" as they did not want to "do the show, talk about it, come back do the show again, talk more about it", and Parker revealed much of their conversation was "more related to how will we get to a kitchen that’s remaining open".
She said: "I could go on and on about how deeply in love I am with this city. However, you have a curtain that comes down at 10.12pm-10.14pm and it’s your big meal of the day and you’re starving and the hustle to get there before you’re holding up an entire staff and a kitchen, which is the last thing we want to do. That’s the talk that surrounds the show — ‘where is our meal tonight?’"
