Theatre

Hugh Leonard has died. His Telegraph obituary reeks of boozy afternoons in Dublin’s finest hostelries: Indeed, Leonard relished quarrels. “An Irish literary movement,” he used to say, “is when two playwrights are on speaking terms”… Leonard resented what he saw as his exclusion from the Irish arts world, and poured vitriol on lesser performers. The trouble with Ireland, he said, was that it was “a country full of genius, but with absolutely no talent”. His critics were equally forthright about the Leonard ego. He was, said one, not an original playwright, merely “an adapter always in search of a plug”. Leonard retorted in kind. He eagerly debunked other famous names,

Condensed Shakespeare: nation’s tabloids report modern repeat of story of Romeo & Juliet under headline: KNIFE CRIME TOFF IN PAEDO SUICIDE PACT

Courtesy of Sarah Schmelling at McSweeney’s: Horatio thinks he saw a ghost. Hamlet thinks it’s annoying when your uncle marries your mother right after your dad dies. The king thinks Hamlet’s annoying. Laertes thinks Ophelia can do better. Hamlet’s father is now a zombie. – – – – The king poked the queen. The queen poked the king back. Hamlet and the queen are no longer friends. Marcellus is pretty sure something’s rotten around here. Hamlet became a fan of daggers. V droll. [Hat-tip: Ezra Klein]

Lovely story told by Simon Hoggart in his Guardian column at the weekend: The death of Simon Gray lets me reprise a favourite story. He was a close friend of Harold Pinter, a great cricket lover. Once Pinter wrote a poem about his hero Len Hutton. It read, in its entirety “I saw Hutton in his prime / Another time, another time.” He sent it to several of his friends. Soon afterwards Pinter and Gray were at the same dinner party and Pinter asked what he thought of the poem. “I don’t know, Harold,” said Gray. “I’m afraid I haven’t finished it yet.” [Hat-tip: Stephen Pollard]

Sad news. Simon Gray, the playwright and memoirist, has died. Just last month I read the latest, and, I suppose, final installment of The Smoking Diaries, a wonderful, funny, poignant set of memoirs that I recommend without the slightest reservation. More importantly, sad because he was one of my father’s oldest friends from Cambridge days way back when. Not many of them left. Booze and tobacco and all that. Telegraph obituary here. The Guardian’s Michael Billington here. And a characteristically good Simon Hattenstone interview here. Understandably Gray rather disapproved of the notion that his memoirs may outlive his plays, but that’s the nature of the respective genres. But I can’t

Filmmaker Andrew Filippone Jr imagines a pseudo-Beckettian edition of The Charlie Rose Show:

Anthony Holden in The Observer: Carmen is back at Covent Garden for the first time since last summer’s Orwellian smoking ban and I’m delighted to report that the Royal Opera has taken not the slightest notice. If there’s any opera in which onstage smoking should be mandatory, this is it. Cigarette girls and soldiers alike all puff their heads off during the first act, to the point where the fumes drift gratifyingly into mid-stalls. And, even better, there are none of those ludicrous health-and-safety signs out front, as, for instance, at the Old Vic, to warn us of the perils of entering a smoke-stained auditorium. Of course in plucky Scotland

The New York Times’ Ben Brantley says this was a year in which drama reasserted itself on (and off) Broadway. If so then that’s a splendid thing. It’s notable, though, that just two American plays make his list of the top ten* dramas to have played in New York this past year. No fewer than seven are the work of British and Irish playwrights (with only two of the productions Brantley hails being revivals of, respectively, Pinter and Sherriff). I draw no broader point from this than to suggest that if five of the best ten dramas presented in New York this year – according to New York’s most influential

That wise owl Terry Teachout responds to the brouhaha over the revelation that Arthur Miller “deleted” his Downs-syndrome son from his life, by digging into his vast archive to retrieve the column he wrote when Gunter Grass’s youthful service in the Waffen SS came to public attention. Mr Teachout reminds us of five important principles whose application is by no means confined to artists in trouble: 1. Judging the sins of the past by the standards of the present can be a shortcut to self-righteousness. Make sure you have all the facts–and that you understand their historical context–before passing sentence. 2. Don’t lose your sense of proportion. 3.Remember the Golden