Gasping

Tsk! Tickets for this remarkable entertainment should be overprinted with a health warning: 'Severe danger of hyperventilation'.

Resistance is futile as James Corden and fellow cast members serve up their sensational seaside soufflé (we're in Brighton 1963). 

Very, very funny - and, for me, far more engaging than the mechanical mayhem of 'traditional' farce. The stunning sight gags and multiple mis-identifications are shot through with real human emotion. 


Corden is a revelation - outrageous, audacious and, despite his ample build, possessed of a physical finesse that many a ballet dancer might envy. 

Winter blues looming? Ditch the Prozac - see this show.

Theatre of war

An outing today to see the National Theatre's celebrated adaptation of Michael Morpurgo's novel War Horse.

Beginning in Edwardian Devonshire, the play follows the linked fortunes of Albert, a farmer's son, and his beloved horse Joey, both of whom are called to serve king and country in the horrors of the Great War.

Working with the remarkable South African Handspring Puppet Theatre, director Marianne Elliott and her mainly young cast conjure up the the deep bond between man and horse in a fast-flowing narrative that takes us from pastoral peace to the bleak devestation of Flanders fields, where men and beasts fell in their hundreds of thousands.

Yes, the horses are puppets. But the word seems uttelry inadaequate to describe what the War Horse audience experiences. Exquisitely crafted from leather and wicker, each horse is operated by three clearly visible men.

At first glance they make no concessions to naturalism - but when they move.... they live and breathe and prance and gallop with such extraordinary truth to life that one is drawn in to their story with an emotional impact that bypasses any hint of sentimentality.

This is a tough afternoon in the theatre, harrowing at times, and yet also deeply moving and uplifting.

Five stars.

Plinth Charming...?

Usually eager to 'accentuate the positive', Mr Gnome is uncharacteristically disappointed by a new piece of public art.

This less-than-life-size portrait bronze stands on the South Bank of the Thames in central London, immediately outside the National Theatre.

It shows the great actor Sir Laurence Olivier as the Prince of Denmark, in costume and pose drawn from the 1940s film of Hamlet, which he also directed.

Mr G says: 'From my point of view, this work misses every target, capturing none of the energy, stature, presence and sheer dramatic oomph of this remarkable thesp - and it makes nothing of its site. Bland-tastic, really.'

Pop to Mr G's post on the new statue of John Betjeman at St Pancras Station for a cheering-up view of a tip-top piece of public art.