Matthew Macfadyen, Ian McKellan, Patrick Stewart, Stephen Mangan: 10 Best Plays of the Year: Perfect Nonsense, Richard III, No Man’s Land, and More

THE DAILY BEAST
Janice Kaplan
December 30, 2013

From Mark Rylance’s lip-curling portrayal of a limping Shakespearean king to Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen’s bromance, see 2013’s best plays.



This was the year that British actors took over Broadway and showed just how good they are. In addition to being thrillingly talented, they performed shows in repertory—which could be seen as showing off.

Americans responded with one brilliant take on a classic, and a host of clever and quirky shows that proved creativity in theater hasn’t been lost. At least twice this number were worth seeing, but here are my ten favorites of the year.

10. Jeeves and Bertie In Perfect Nonsense

Three esteemed actors trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in London pop into a slapstick play based on the beloved novels of P.G. Wodehouse and have a grand old time. Serious Shakespearean star Matthew Macfadyen plays Jeeves and cross-dresses as a female love interest, and Stephen Mangan is Wooster, in on the joke as he takes a bubble-bath on stage. Now drawing sell-out crowds on London’s West End, the English humor would delight on Broadway, and here’s hoping the producers bring it across the pond. We do love our Brits.

6. The Winslow Boy

Playwright Terrence Rattigan was dismissed as old-school decades ago, but the wonderful revival of this 1946 play should make him as sought-after as mid-century designer furniture. In this classic drawing-room drama, Arthur Winslow (Roger Rees) is a father who goes to extreme measures after his young son (Spencer Davis Milford) is thrown out of a naval academy for a petty offense. The virtue of fighting for the truth at any cost is front and center, but in this terrifically acted and directed production, the characters register as real people who care about love and family as well as ideals.

3. No Man’s Land

Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen enthrall as two old writers who (possibly) knew each other at Oxford and try to drown the pains of the present with tales of a happily philandering past. Though the play is imbued with the despair of aging and impotence, these brilliant actors give unforgettably virile performances as men caught in a moment where they no longer matter. For those who recognize them only from movie blockbusters, the stars’ artistry with Pinter’s language is a revelation.  They appear in alternate performances in a wonderfully picaresque Waiting for Godot.






READ MORE HERE:http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/12/27/10-best-plays-of-the-year-richard-iii-no-man-s-land-and-more.html

Matthew Macfadyen: Jeeves & Wooster in Perfect Nonsense (review). I say, chaps, a top-hole show!

THE BUCKS HERALD
by Anne Cox
anne.cox@jpress.co.uk
15 November, 2013



What ho! Gosh, there’s jolly fun to be had at the theatre these days. Had a simply spiffing time at The Duke Of York’s this week seeing a new comedy featuring a pair of coves that had me in oodles of laughter.

It was Perfect Nonsense of course but the audience laughed like drains. I can’t think of a better night’s entertainment.

It seems impossible to imagine but the hilarious antics of Bertie Wooster and his man, Jeeves, have never made it into the West End – until now. Writer PG Wodehouse would have been delighted that his creations have finally won the recognition they deserve.

His stories, and there are shelves of them, have been notoriously hard to lift off the page. Making the leap to stage or screen has, on the whole, been disappointing (the recent Blandings series on Sunday afternoon BBCTV is a case in point).

But now, everything has come together, in a show that is a hoot to watch from beginning to end. It’s blessed with a near perfect cast and the pedigree of a top-hole production team.

Is casting the key? Stephen Mangan, as Wooster, is sublime. He’s charismatic from the outset, with an ear-to-ear beam that displays his pearly whites to perfection. You can’t help falling for his charm. Wooster/Mangan is just so bally endearing. The chap is brimming with innocence and whimsy, the eternal optimist who seems to always land on his feet no matter what fix he’s in.

He’s joined in this escapade by Matthew Macfadyen who has never struck me as having any sort of funny bone judging from a biography that leans heavily towards classical and heavyweight drama. How wrong I was.

He is the epitome of a gentleman’s gentleman with a beautifully paced performance that is shared by his acting partner, the Macfadyen Left Eyebrow, which should really have its own entry in the programme. It rises in incredulity at frequent intervals and obviously went to the same acting classes as Roger Moore’s Left Eyebrow. It deserves an Olivier.

Who’d have thought the star of Spooks, Wuthering Heights and Ripper Street, was imbued with a sense of humour? It’s rare to ever see him smile or be, in any way, animated in his previous roles. Here he lets caution to the wind and even dons a dress (nice legs, by the way). I hope this is a turning point for the actor. He really should show his comedic talents more often. Mr M, a solidly built, lofty 6ft 3ins, even dances (though I doubt whether he’d score more than a 3 on Strictly).

READ MORE HERE: http://www.bucksherald.co.uk/what-s-on/theatre/jeeves-wooster-in-perfect-nonsense-review-i-say-chaps-a-top-hole-show-1-5683266

Podcast: Stephen Mangan, Matthew Macfadyen and Sean Foley at Jeeves & Wooster Q&A

Listen to the post-show Q&A with cast members Matthew Macfadyen and Stephen Mangan and director Sean Foley on our Outing to see Jeeves and Wooster - Perfect Nonsense 

WHAT'S ON STAGE

By Editorial Staff • 6 Nov 2013 • London

Last night we took over 100 theatregoers to see Sean Foley's production of Jeeves and Wooster in Perfect Nonsense at the Duke of York's Theatre.

Written by siblings Robert and David Goodale, Perfect Nonsense is adapted from PG Wodehouse's The Code of the Woosters (1938), the first installment in the Totleigh Towers saga.

The play stars Stephen Mangan as Bertie Wooster, Matthew Macfadyen as Jeeves and Mark Hadfield as Seppings.

READ MORE HERE: http://www.whatsonstage.com/london-theatre/news/11-2013/podcast-stephen-mangan-matthew-macfadyen-and-sean-_32560.html?cid=homepage_news

 

Matthew Macfadyen, Stephen Mangan images from PERFECT NONSENSE, at the Duke of York theatre (CONTACT MUSIC)

 

Stephen Mangan and Matthew Macfadyen: On friendship and Jeeves and Wooster

Stephen Mangan and Macfadyen have known each other for nearly 20 years (Picture: Manuel Harlan)

METRO
Thursday 31 Oct 2013 6:00 am

‘It’s like trying to do a 1,000-piece jigsaw – you think you’ll never get it.’ Stephen Mangan is preparing to take to the West End stage as disaster-prone aristo Bertie Wooster in Perfect Nonsense, a new farce based on PG Wodehouse’s novels.

‘It’s the most ridiculously complicated plot in the history of theatre!’ he declares of the Goodale brothers’ furiously fast and funny play-within-a-play.

Fortunately, Matthew Macfadyen, playing Bertie’s unflappable valet, is on hand to bring a touch of Jeevesian calm to the situation. ‘It’s exactly like a dance,’ he says. ‘It’s more about having it in your body, a physical memory.’

If you’re going to form a double act with someone, it’s probably a good idea to do it with a friend. Mangan and Macfadyen have known one another for almost 20 years, having been at Rada at the same time and previously worked together on productions of Much Ado About Nothing and Richard Sheridan’s The School For Scandal. ‘Because we know one another well, there wasn’t that: “Will we like each other? Do we have the same sense of humour?” worry before we started rehearsals,’ says Mangan.

Playing such a well-known duo inevitably brings weighty expectations, not least from devotees of the books. Are they connoisseurs of Wodehouse’s novels? ‘I’ve probably read about 15,’ says Mangan. Macfadyen confesses to having managed only one. ‘Three children,’ he proffers by way of explanation.

‘There’s always an anxiety about playing literary characters because one of the great joys of reading books is that you can create your own vision of things,’ says Mangan. ‘Everyone who knows and loves those books will have an idea of what Bertie and Jeeves should look like.’

For audiences raised on the classic early 1990s TV adaptation, of course, they probably look quite a lot like Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie. Is that hard to compete with?

‘There’s a new Hamlet every eight months in the West End, so hopefully people will be able to cope with another Jeeves and Wooster after 20 years,’ laughs Mangan. ‘I should play Bertie as a depressed Norwegian with a limp. Then people would say: “Wow, look what’s he done with the part!”’

Macfadyen has been in this position before: he played Mr Darcy in the 2005 film version of Pride And Prejudice, which followed in the wake of the popular BBC TV adaptation. ‘Every interview I did I was asked about Colin Firth. I would patiently explain that most actors don’t think: “How am I going to make it different?”’ he says, patiently. ‘You simply can’t work like that. What you think is: “Isn’t it lovely that I’m treading in the same shoes as this lovely actor.”’

Mangan is philosophical about being handpicked for the role of Wooster, who is dismissed as ‘mentally negligible’ by Jeeves in the novels. ‘You’re talking to the man who’s played Adrian Mole and Postman Pat,’ he laughs.

‘Between them, they’re probably the three sexiest characters in the English tradition.’ He adds with mock-solemnity: ‘You think you’re going to grow up to play James Bond but you get offered Bertie Wooster instead.’ Whether he ever gets to play 007 or not, he doesn’t seem too unhappy with his lot.

Though both actors are well-known for their film and TV work, they are clearly relishing the prospect of returning to the theatre. ‘You never hear anybody laugh when you’re filming a TV show or a movie,’ says Mangan. ‘In the theatre, an audience that’s really up for it and generous will get actors giving their best performances. It’s a two-way thing.’

READ MORE HERE: http://metro.co.uk/2013/10/31/stephen-mangan-and-matthew-macfadyen-on-friendship-and-jeeves-and-wooster-4167223/

Matthew Macfadyen: What is it about Jeeves and Wooster?

THE TELEGRAPH
By Jasper Rees1:00PM BST
08 Oct 2013

The consistency of a divine soufflé. The delicacy of finest bone china. Choose your own image to embody the unimprovable prose of PG Wodehouse.

Those who tamper with it do so at their own peril. The BBC’s recent attempt to capture the bucolic anarchy of the Blandings books had all the sophistication of a whoopee cushion. So we must treat a new stage version of the even more untouchable Jeeves and Wooster with trepidation.

Perfect Nonsense is bearing down on the West End with a cast that may at least smooth the furrowed brows of worried Wodehousians. Stephen Mangan, who plays Bertie, is a victor ludorum in comic buffoonery — as seen in Green Wing and Episodes and above all in the Tony-winning The Norman Conquests.

Matthew Macfadyen will bring to his Jeeves the same still poker face he deployed to such effect in Spooks, but having starred in Private Lives (opposite Kim Cattrall), he also knows about stage mayhem. So that’s all tickety-boo.

But there is a twist. In what is being billed as An Evening with Jeeves and Wooster, there is just one other actor in the cast. So in this adaptation of The Code of the Woosters — the one with the cow creamer — who is going to play Roderick Spode, Sir Watkyn Bassett, Gussie Fink-Nottle, Stiffy Byng and, with no actress on the payroll, the redoubtable Aunt Dahlia? The answer is that the ever resourceful Jeeves will, with the help of his valeting colleague Seppings. He will also supply set, costumes and lighting.



Yes, like previous West End comedy blockbusters The 39 Steps and The Play What I Wrote, Perfect Nonsense is a short-staffed play within a play. That explains the presence of the comedy director Sean Foley, one half of the comic troupe The Right Size whose stage hit The Ladykillers is doing a second stint in the West End. As they wrestled with the script supplied by Robert and David Goodale, the stars and their director explain how it’ll all be all right on the night.

Jasper Rees Wouldn’t it have been so much simpler to do a straight adaptation?

Stephen Mangan It would have probably felt a little bit, why do it? I can’t imagine it being as fun to do. Part of the problem is you’re taking all those perfectly constructed sentences and shouting them in a theatre. Will they survive? This preserves a lot of Bertie’s wit. I’m just banking on the fact that the sort of person who enjoys Wodehouse is the sort of person who won’t come along looking for problems.

Sean Foley A dutiful old-style rep version would be deathly boring. It’s a brilliant conceit. Bertie has been told he’s a wonderful actor and why doesn’t he just tell one of his wonderful stories in a theatre one night? He thinks, what a terrific idea, and within 30 seconds it’s a disaster. Jeeves comes on and save the day, and how.

Matthew Macfadyen It’s interesting to think how many people will think it’s a conventional proscenium arch retelling of a PG Wodehouse book. The fourth wall is in and out the whole time. The audience really is the fourth character in the play.

JR Which must make it particularly hard to rehearse?

SM When you read the script first you laugh a lot. And then as you work on it over the weeks it becomes less and less funny because you’ve heard all the jokes. The show is like a thousand-piece jigsaw and at the moment I feel like I’ve lost the pieces. Noises Off was the same. You go, “This is never going to work.”

SF It’s like four-dimensional chess. Or even seven, let’s be honest. It’s why I love first previews because it’s when you meet the audience. I sit there in the last dress rehearsals going, it’s a disaster. And then the healing wave of laughter comes and you’re away.

SM They are exciting evenings but I do always think, what lunatic comes to a first preview? Why would you want to see a show that isn’t ready yet? But we need somebody there.

MM Buffering, that’s our new word. In the course of a mini run we’ve just stopped where the downloading has stopped and we just don’t know what’s coming next. It’s not even a question of trying to remember. But we are lucky in the sense that Jeeves and Wooster are putting it on and they’re hoping for the best.

READ MORE HERE: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/theatre/theatre-features/10361252/What-is-it-about-Jeeves-and-Wooster.html

Win a pair of tickets to see Matthew Macfadyen and Stephen Mangan as Jeeves & Wooster plus an overnight stay in London

THE GUARDIAN
the guardian.com, Friday 13 September 2013 05.41 EDT

When a perfectly delightful trip to the countryside takes a turn for the worse, Bertie Wooster is unwittingly called on to play matchmaker – reconciling the affections of his host's drippy daughter Madeline Bassett with his newt-fancying acquaintance Gussie Fink-Nottle. If Bertie, ably assisted by the ever-dependable Jeeves, can't pull off the wedding of the season, he'll be forced to abandon his cherished bachelor status and marry the ghastly girl himself! Jeeves & Wooster in 'Perfect Nonsense' opens at the Duke of York's Theatre next month.

CLICK HERE TO ENTER THIS COMPETITION

Matthew Macfadyen: Jeeves and Wooster to take to West End stage in Perfect Nonsense (GUARDIAN) Mark Brown, arts correspondent

Matthew Macfadyen will star as Jeeves (left) and Stephen Mangan as Wooster at the Duke of York's Theatre. Photograph: Uli Weber

There are the books of course, TV series in the sixties and nineties, radio adaptations and a musical take from Andrew Lloyd Webber but, dash it, never a stage play featuring one of the greatest comedy double acts ever conceived.

On Monday a corrective to that will be announced. PG Wodehouse's Jeeves and Wooster are finally coming to the West End in a new play starring Stephen Mangan as the endearingly idiotic Bertie and Matthew Macfadyen as his brilliant, unflappable butler.

Mangan, recently seen in the BBC2 sitcom Episodes, said he was "ridiculously excited" at the prospect, although he admitted he had not read any of the Wodehouse books before being offered the role.

"I always meant to," he told the Guardian. "Everyone tells you how funny they are, but for some reason I never got round to him. They gave me the script, I started reading some books and I've been ploughing through them since then. It's like crack cocaine.

"I'm quite pleased with myself for holding out for so long because it means I've got them all in my head. I don't think anyone else can quite coin a sentence with such invention and wit. Wit almost doesn't seem a big enough word for it. The sheer brilliance of the writing almost takes your breath away."

The play, called Perfect Nonsense, by the brothers Robert and David Goodale, is largely based on Wodehouse's 1938 book The Code of the Woosters, described by some critics as his best work.

The play will open at the Duke of York's Theatre on 30 October after short runs at Richmond Theatre and the Brighton Theatre Royal.

READ MORE:http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/2013/jun/02/jeeves-and-wooster-west-end 

BBC’s very own “Downton Abbey” - Fermanagh-filmed “Nick Nickleby” set for big success - VIDEOS North's attracting top flight projects due to pristine locations and talented film crews By ANTOINETTE KELLY, IrishCentral.com Staff Writer

Crom Castle

It's already being dubbed the new Downton Abbey, but the fact is that the BBC's new period comedy Blandings has a better writer: P.G. Wodehouse.

It's the latest top flight project that will be filmed in the north or Ireland, with a cast that includes Absolutely Fabulous' Jennifer Saunder and Harry Potter star Timothy Spall. Blandings will be filmed in the imposing surroundings of Crom Castle, in County Fermanagh, and is sure to highlight the north's pristine landscapes and the talent of their world class film crews.

Tourism Minister Arlene Foster told the Belfast Telegraph: 'The fact that Crom Castle was selected as the venue to film the PG Wodehouse Blandings stories is a real coup for Fermanagh. It was great to meet the cast and crew, and to see at first hand the program being filmed.' 


Read more:  http://www.irishcentral.com/ent/BBCs-very-own-Downton-Abbey---Fermanagh-filmed-Nick-Nickleby-set-for-big-success---VIDEOS-146528595.html

Hugh Laurie: Dr. House to play blues in Kyiv in June (Ukraine's Main News)

British actor and musician and star of the popular TV series House, Hugh Laurie, will play a gig in Kyiv to promote his debut blues album.

 As a part of this year's tour, Laurie will perform in Kyiv (on June 20), Minsk (June 22), St. Petersburg (June 24) and Moscow (June 25), according to the Web site of the Euro Entertainment company. His debut album "Let Them Talk" was released in 2011.

The album, which consists of classic blues songs, was recorded in Los Angeles and New Orleans. "In my imagination, New Orleans just straight hummed with music, romance, joy, despair; its rhythms got into my gawky English frame and, at times, made me so happy and sad, I just didn't know what to do with myself," the concert organizers quoted Laurie as saying.

 "Acting is largely about putting on masks, and music is about removing them," the actor was quoted as saying. Hugh Laurie was first became well known as one half of the Fry and Laurie double act, along with his friend and comedy partner Stephen Fry. The duo than starred in the Jeeves and Wooster TV series adapted from P.G. Wodehouse's stories.


Read further:  http://www.interfax.com.ua/eng/main/95104/