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“Hello and Good Morning”

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“Hello and Good Morning” When Susan Brown step out, obscured by Rabbi beard and hat, to utter those words and open Angels in America this Saturday, it is a milestone moment. 26 years, 4 months and 2 days (yes, exactly) after opening on Broadway the Angels have finally flown home, via London. There’s a sense that once again in this play’s history, London quietly created something quite special out of this iconic American play. It’s right that it’s Brown who opens the play. The formidable, often overlooked actress Broadway probably has never heard of but should have. Because despite the star line up above the title there’s a quiet, yes quite British confidence, about a production filled with non-Americans taking on this icon of British theatre. Much like the doubling in the play, the original London production was a ‘double’ of the Broadway (and Los Angeles) productions happening simultaneously.   And yet, through quirks of logistics, the National Theatre en...
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A kind of painful progress...Angels in America and me.

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Almost a week ago now, Prior Walter bid the Lyttleton theatre ‘More Life’ one last time. Twenty-four years earlier it had opened next door in the Cottesloe. And some 14 or so years earlier they Angel first crashed into my life. Since then it’s been a labour of love, of 100, 000 words of PhD thesis and thousands more words in blog posts, message board comments, emails, tweets and arguments with wanker academics who obviously know better. And finally, this year, hours of conversation with my favourite director, hours of talking to an audience at the NT, kind words with the cast (and hugs!) and words committed to the programme. It’s been one hell of a ride, it hasn’t always been easy, but finally all the work to this point feels worth it. I keep coming back to Harper’s final monologue, ‘In this world there is a kind of painful progress, a longing for what’s left behind, and dreaming ahead.’ And as much as I’m already longing for it what this production also gave me is a chance to...
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Let's Fly these Angels to Broadway...

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So it's official that the Angels are flying back to America. Admittedly it was a fairly well known 'secret' and admittedly I knew some weeks ago. On one hand that's what made it easier for me to say 'I'm fine really' once Angels closed- knowing it wasn't a real 'goodbye' just 'farewell'. Why then am I so emotional about this today? Well firstly, in all honesty it's been a hard week. It's the first week I've been both jobless and Angels-less. And it all finally caught up with me. So what does it mean really to fly home to Broadway? well for me the NT revival was always the big one. That was 'home' for 'my' Angels. I've always been pretty nerdy about the fact the technical world premiere of the whole thing was there. But now, for a British director and (largely) British cast to take that most American of plays back home. That takes some chutzpah- in a really good way. Because America has done pr...
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