http://www.offwestend.com/wordpress OffWestEnd.com - Theatre Starts Here Thu, 24 Jun 2010 19:16:54 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Join me on a stark sojourn through the sordid and controversial corridors of my past.  Shiver as you discover I used to wax lyrical about Commodore 64s.  Squeal as I titillate you with tales of painting lead figurines deep into the night.  Shudder as I relay the fact that once ... http://www.offwestend.com/wordpress/?p=39 THE OLD VIC Really? The Old Vic? Off-west-end? Well, yes. Not only is the statement a geographical certainty, but there was a time when the Old Vic was considered so off-west-end that wealthy theatre-goers would hire armed escorts to see them safely past the brigands and blackguards of Waterloo Bridge. Now we ... http://www.offwestend.com/wordpress/?p=93 COTTESLOE, NATIONAL THEATRE Ah, the never-ending whirligig of theatrical fashion. Last century the words Theatre In Education were greeted with the same bloated dread that accompanied phrases like The Scottish Play. Self-styled Withnails would claim they’d rather eat their Equity card than tour schools with Bullies Need Befriending and Peggy Penguin ... http://www.offwestend.com/wordpress/?p=96 COCHRANE THEATRE When I was at drama school we never had a theatre per se. What we had was a space known ominously as ‘ROOM 1’. Its walls were the colour of Miss Havisham’s wedding cake. Its toilet cubicles morphed miraculously into dressing rooms. Its windows were held up with ballet ... http://www.offwestend.com/wordpress/?p=95 THE OLD VIC Really? The Old Vic? Off-west-end? Well, yes. Not only is the statement a geographical certainty, but there was a time when the Old Vic was considered so off-west-end that wealthy theatre-goers would hire armed escorts to see them safely past the brigands and blackguards of Waterloo Bridge. Now we ... http://www.offwestend.com/wordpress/?p=94 WHITE BEAR THEATRE CLUB Every good theatre has versatility on its side. The Manchester Royal Exchange doubles nicely as an intergalactic spaceship. The Old Vic’s public bar successfully moonlights as an Ultimate Fighting Arena (well, it did before they installed CCTV). And the National Theatre is obviously London’s unofficial bastion in ... http://www.offwestend.com/wordpress/?p=92 GREENWICH THEATRE Talk about scandal. One minute I’m at the theatre enjoying a perfectly respectable piece of Restoration — the next I’m in the depths of Lewisham doing the twist (again) between a woman dressed in a yoga mat and a man in a faux-bearskin loincloth, mixing mojitos for people in ... http://www.offwestend.com/wordpress/?p=91 Sink into a sofa at THEATRE 503 This week’s venue has the dubious prestige of being the only theatre I’ve ever walked out of. Not, rest assured fringe-lovers, because of anything to do with the production. Just good old-fashioned self-humiliation. A few years back, during the first half of a touching ... http://www.offwestend.com/wordpress/?p=90 THE GATE THEATRE Approximately 83 theatres make up the glorious confederacy of the Off-West End. 83! Show to show that's 8 straight days of sitting in the dark; roughly 166 gin & tonics - and 8 limes, if you're the type. I for one am that type, and here begins a ... http://www.offwestend.com/wordpress/?p=89 Home is where the art is. And I've habited some less than artful places. I lived in a luxury apartment with a Jacuzzi and sauna that was so pointlessly expensive that we'd sit in the spa reminiscing about sustenance. I stayed with an ambassador's daughter whose house was an elegant ... http://www.offwestend.com/wordpress/?p=87