Well
Apollo
Hit Me! The Life and Rhymes of Ian Dury
Leicester Square
In Blood: The Bacchae
Arcola
So what does the theatre critic make of the recession? No one’s asked me, actually, so here goes. Leaving aside the obsessive 24-hour media coverage, there’s little trace of it in the real world. Immunise your bonce against the gloom-rites of the newspapers and you’ll see that the impending ‘slump’ (dimple, actually) will prove to be the briefest and shallowest downturn in economic history. By next Christmas the factories will be pumping out skiploads of new consumer junk, the FTSE will be performing dizzying feats of alpinism at the 6,000 mark and the present media-orchestrated collective trance will have become a distant memory. How do I know? I’m in the West End a lot and I’ve never seen it so busy. Indigenous spendaholic Britons are being joined by bargain-grabbers from Europe and Russia and there are plenty of well-tailored, absurdly over-polite Americans too.
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