The very word GATSBY conjures up a world of 1920’s glamour and sophistication as portrayed in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s celebrated novel THE GREAT GATSBY, about a broken hearted playboy.
It’s recently come out of copyright and there’s been a scrabble to adapt it for the stage. The UK already has one touring production and many Londoners will still remember an extraordinary visiting production from New York, GATZ, in which the cast read every word of the novel in an epic and highly acclaimed theatrical marathon.
The screenwriter, playwright, novelist, journalist and political reactionary, Ben Hecht was an extraordinary man.
Shakespeare’s comedy of gender swapping lovers and philosophising in a forest is problematic for modern audiences.
We are incredibly lucky in London to be in the midst of an era where commercial theatre is being reinvented by daring directors and producers. Unlike New York where only sure-fire, star studded hits ever make it to Broadway, the likes of Michael Grandage and Kenneth Branagh are providing the opportunity for audiences to experience an exciting range of both new and old works in the commercial West End.
Celebrated Edwardian novelist, D.H. Lawrence, whose best known works include LADY CHATTERLY’S LOVER, THE RAINBOW and WOMEN IN LOVE also wrote three gritty plays depicting tough life in a mining village at the turn of the last century. They lay unloved and unremarked upon until a revival in the 1960s established them as classics of domestic naturalism.