The hillscape views from the theatre? 5 stars

And programme bios are an odd old genre, but Lambdog1066 undoubtedly commits

Wonderful description of the costumes by @mrlukowski.bsky.social

Still thinking about the costumes by Lambdog1066 - not so much clothes as gorgeously unlikely poems (delicious photos by Manuel Harlan)

Felt a pang at my final visit to the old @theyardtheatre.bsky.social, though The Glass Menagerie is a beautiful way to say goodbye. The long fragile scene between Laura and her gentleman caller is breathtaking - sensationally delicate stage debuts by Eva Morgan & Jad Sayegh

First wild garlic of the year. Spring, despite everything, is springing.

My dad was watching Kelly's Heroes on tv while I was working. Only caught glimpses, but enough to say: young Donald Sutherland. What a peach of a performer he was

2025 will have to work hard for a visual wonder more boggling than the onions in Japan House's exhibition of replica food. The textures! The dry outer skin, the fine inner skin! Love them

Primary Trust by Eboni Booth, which won the Puiltizer this year (in @americantheatre.bsky.social - gorgeous cover). A beautiful play about loneliness, and how it can sustain you as well as holding you back. Plans for a British production might be in the works, but if not - get on it, UK theatres!

Yesterday I met someone whose childhood neighbour was Stanley Judson, star of the first full-length Btitush Nutcracker in 1934. Judson and his fella, who was a decorator, lived in Muswell Hill. Amazing to hear of the link to a ballet pioneer - not to mention out gay men in the, I guess, 1950s.

An absolute favourite interview, with novelist Edward Carey. We spent a morning bouncing round the theatre galleries at V&A. He was BEAMING, esp at the puppets. Ace stories about working stage door, meeting Pinter, the ghostly feel of empty theatres. Read his Edith Holler, a gothic theatre-set treat

Perhaps the loveliest thing in Ballet Shoes at National Theatre (apart from Frankie Bradshaw's cabinet-of-curiosities set) is the gentle stress on chosen families (which must be why the adaptation changes the lodgers from couples to singles) - v nicely done.

Watched Importance of Being Earnest in a fugue state of glee. Eye popping costumes. Fun music (guy beside us sang along to entire interval playlist). Ace cast FEASTS on the text. Filthy yet strangely innocent & queer af. Can desire fit into the demands of Victorian society & het romcom? Somehow yes!

Michael Keegan-Dolan's Nobodaddy at Sadler's Wells often has a genuine wildness - it turns in an instant between fierce despair and joy. And the music by @samamidon.bsky.social? A life & death glory

Natasha Tripney's substack today is a great piece on The Strange Undoing of Prudencia Hart in Hungarian. And this aside, on Hungarian applause, is fascinating!
natashatripney.substack.com/p/the-devils...

Bluesky debut for these sleepy gents

Had fun investigating the wonderful world of swings for Musicals magazine. The quantities of info they carry in their heads are mind-boggling to me. Love to see examples of the "bibles": drawings & notes that help them keep it alive.