8th October 2024:
The last West End theatre to be destroyed by fire was the Savoy Theatre in the Strand on 12th February 1990.
The last show to play there was magician Paul Daniels own show "It's Magic."
The monkey hastens to point out that it was renovations going wrong, not a desire to make the theatre disappear which was the cause.
1st October 2024:
Australia is obsessed with "Fawlty Towers." Both the play at the Apollo Theatre, Shaftesbury Avenue, and the "Faulty Towers Dining Experience" at the President Hotel originated there.
Wonder if Manuel was really from Barcelona... or Brisbane?
24th September 2024:
Apart from a producer, what do "The Phantom of the Opera" and "Les Misérables" have in common?
Both use dummies to create a bigger crowd on stage during big sequences. "Masquerade" during "Phantom" has literal "painted faces on parade" on the staircase, while more dummies provide extra bodies during the "Barricade" sequence in "Les Misérables."
17th September 2024:
About the current show "Cake: The Marie Antoinette Playlist":
Marie Antoinette famously had a beauty-spot on her cheekbone. In this show, the spot on Zizi Strallen's cheek ia a perfect little black heart!
Isn't that cute, and highly inventive of make-up designer Sami Fendall.
10th September 2024:
From a reader, about the current show "John Cleese's Fawlty Towers - The Play":
"I sat in row B, so I was pretty close to the stage and could hear everything that "Basil" was saying. When he was doing the "funny walk" for the Germans, he quietly said "Hast du etwas Zeit für mich ...." which is the first line of Nena`s song "99 red balloons" in the original German version. I bet I am one of the first people to notice that."
3rd September 2024:
When the musical "Cats" opened at the New London Theatre in 1981, the programme boasted that "Bouncer the theatre cat was fed exclusively on Whiskas."
The New London Theatre (now the Gillian Lynne), didn't actually have a cat. Bouncer was borrowed from the Fortune Theatre down the road.
