23rd Oct2019

Ian McKellen On Stage (Theatre)

by timbaros
CLEARANCE REQUIRED BEFORE ANY USAGE. SPECIAL PRICE APPLIES. British actor Sir Ian McKellen.

CLEARANCE REQUIRED BEFORE ANY USAGE. SPECIAL PRICE APPLIES.
British actor Sir Ian McKellen.

“Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them.”

This is a famous quote from ‘Twelfth Night’ by William Shakespeare, and it can also be applied to Sir Ian McKellen, and his performance in his one-man show ‘Ian McKellen On Stage,’ a show that is both very entertaining, engaging, brilliant and great!

McKellen has been touring this solo show all over the UK – 80 theatres for his 80th birthday, and now 80 performances at the Harold Pinter Theatre in London.
And I strongly encourage you to go – do whatever you can to get a ticket. It is a tour de force performance, so unlike anything I’ve ever seen in live theatre. And it’s rare to see someone of his caliber, celebrity, candor, wit and knowledge on a West End Stage.

McKellen takes us through his life during this show, which includes his work in both film (especially ‘Lord of The Rings’ where he famously played Gandalf) and theatre, working with legends any actor can only dream of working with (Laurence Olivier). There is also a huge suitcase on stage, a suitcase littered with stickers of theatres where he has performed this very same show (The Space in the Isle of Dogs, the Young Vic, Theatre Royal Stratford East, Leicester Curve Studio…..the list goes on and on). But in this suitcase are books by William Shakespeare, and McKellen gets the audience involved by asking them to call out the names of any Shakespeare book, which McKellen plucks out of the suitcase and proceeds to tell a story about said book, until all the books have been talked about – pure genius.

Ian McKellen on Stage is what I suspect is the real Ian Mckellen off stage; genuinely warm, friendly, self-assured and confident and making you feel this way too, and by the end of the night he makes the audience feel that they were let in on his life, with some secrets told, and some gossip about other famous people, and opening up his life to us in a way no other performer (that I know of) has ever done. And we feel that we want to share our lives with him at some point as well. Ian (yes I feel comfortable enough to call him Ian) collects money in the lobby after the show for theatre charities (proceeds from this show also goes to theatre charities). Taking this show to 80 theatres around the country was an 80th birthday present to himself – it is also a birthday gift to us and is a once in a lifetime experience for us as well.

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23rd Oct2019

tick tick…BOOM (Theatre)

by timbaros
_JSS2304-2Jonathan Larson, the genius behind ‘Rent’ – perhaps one of the greatest musicals of all time – created a show about his struggle with getting a show produced before ‘Rent’ – the show is ‘tick tick…BOOM’ – and it is now playing at the Bridge House theatre in SE20 – Penge.
Larson, who died sadly and unexpectedly of an aortic aneurysm in January, 1996 – a few weeks before ‘Rent’s’ world premiere – at the age of 35 – was very talented, and as the Writer, Composer and Lyricist of ‘tick tick…BOOM’ his extreme talent was just starting to bloom when he died. But ‘tick, tick…BOOM’ is actually what turns out to be a celebration of his life – telling the story of Jon (a very good Alex Lodge) getting ready to turn 30 and still waiting tables for a living but soon to workshop a show he has written called Superbia. He’s besotted with his girlfriend Susan (a good Georgie Ashford) and is not very jealous of his rich gay best friend Michael (James Hume), who seems to have it all but in all actuality does not. So ‘tick, tick…BOOM’ takes us through the trials and tribulations of Jon’s struggle with the upcoming workshop, and his relationships with his girlfriend and best friend. Songs in this show, including ‘Therapy’ and the opening number ’30/90′ pre-tell the songwriting style of Larson and what was to come in the masterpiece that was ‘Rent.’ If you, like me, are a fan of ‘Rent’ and have never seen ‘tick, tick….BOOM,’ it’s worth the journey to Penge to see this show (the theatre is conveniently located next to Penge East overground train station). If you’ve never seen ‘Rent,’ then this show is also worth a watch as the story is relevant to pretty much all of us as we struggled to become successful in our first jobs. And the cast are all wonderful, and Lodge is just about perfect as Jon, with a glimmer of a sparkle in his eye that tells us the real Jon knew he had a gift.
The show was first performed Off-Off-Broadway in September 1990 by Jonathan Larson in a workshop at the Second Stage Theatre under the title ‘Boho Days.’ It originally premiered in London with Neil Patrick Harris as Jon at the Menier Chocolate Factory and ran for three months. This production ends on October 27th, so book now.
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