UR TV CAST

On the grounds that it “was not an appropriate time” to ask audiences “to think critically about various aspects of the American experience”, a projected Broadway revival was swiftly cancelled in the wake of September 11. Not until three years later did Assassins find a home on the Great White Way in a Tony-garlanded revival.Nikolai Foster’s Crucible production is the first large-scale account of this work in Britain since September 11. Sondheim confronts us with the apparent incongruity of placing these people in a piece of musical theatre, only to invite us to see that the clash is more apparent than real.
The “you can be a winner” ethos of the American musical is the product of a culture in which, theoretically, anyone can grow up to be President. The twist in Sondheim’s 1991 show is that the song is delivered by a line-up of nine gun-toting would-be assassins of US presidents, ranging from Lincoln’s nemesis, John Wilkes Booth, to John Hinckley who tried to put an end to Ronald Reagan. As Routledge trips in and out of the French windows with baskets of fruit and flowers, it looks as if the two men (Cockerell an atheist; Shaw a creative evolutionist) have employed the Mother Abbess in The Sound of Music as their gardener.However, Pennington conveys, with great skill, how notching up friendships answers the same compensatory need as collecting manuscripts for the name-dropping Cockerell; Routledge’s Laurentia radiates beatific joy; and Dotrice brings out the sensitive side of Shaw, as well as the mischievous one.To 1 April (202-7722 9301). “If you keep your goal in sight,/ You can climb to any height…/ Everybody’s got the right/ To their dreams.” This is standard Broadway sentiment.

The performances have richness and depth, but I can’t help feeling that these distinguished actors could have captured the essence of the trio in a reading, without having to dress up in false beards and wimples. Stage treatment – with the characters reciting chunks of epistolary prose at one another on a cosily cluttered, William Morris-papered set – involves pretending that an intelligent, witty, quietly powerful anthology of mutual preoccupations (religious belief, the mystery of friendship, the meaning of freedom) can constitute a play. “Plot has always been the curse of serious drama, and indeed of serious literature of any kind,” declares Shaw. The Best of Friends belies this verdict.The piece is revived by James Roose-Evans in a warm, elegant production that casts Roy Dotrice as Shaw, Michael Pennington as Cockerell, and Patricia Routledge as Laurentia.

Theatre critics often use the word “civilised” as code for “literate, humane, but undramatic”. It must be said that, by that token, Hugh Whitemore’s 1988 play is quintessentially civilised. The piece explores the friendship between George Bernard Shaw, Dame Laurentia McLachlan (a Benedictine nun who became the Abbess of Stanbrook) and Sir Sydney Cockerell, the director of the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, who arranged their first meeting when Shaw was in his late sixties and Dame Laurentia a decade younger.
GBS admiringly characterised Dame Laurentia as “an enclosed nun with an unenclosed mind”. Her way of life, though, made meeting hard, and their friendship, which lasted 25 years, was conducted mostly by letter. The piece recasts exchanges in the correspondence as dialogue, interspersed by diary extracts, with the last survivor, Sir Sydney, acting as our guide.The natural home for the piece is radio.

Permieres of Glinka’s Ivan Susanin and Ruslan and Ludmila in the 1840s mark the birth of a truly Russian school of composition 1877: First performance of Swan Lake, originally a failure but now a much-loved favourite 1917: Left-wing critics demand the removal of “bourgeois” composers such as Tchaikovsky from the repertory but moderate voices prevail 1920s: Bolshoi Theatre gives free concerts for soldiers and workers 2005: Reconstruction of the main Bolshoi Theatre stage begin, with performances only on its New Stage 2007-2008: Performances on both stages will restart Mariinsky Theatre (formerly the Kirov) 1740s: First Russian ballet company is set up in St Petersburg, laying the foundation for what becomes the Mariinsky 1783: Catherine the Great establishes an official home for the Imperial Italian Opera 1860: New theatre for the Russian troupe opens, named Mariinsky after the Empress Marie who ordered it 1862: Verdi’s La Forza del Destino receives its premiere 1935: The Mariinsky is renamed the Kirov by order of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin in honour of Sergey Kirov, a Communist leader whose assassination the previous year marked the beginning of the Great Purge 2003: Dominique Perrault wins an architecture competition to design a new building for the theatre, which will sit alongside the old 2006: The Mariinsky Theatre closes for refurbishment. UK audiences are going to be in for a real feast.” The Bolshoi 1776: Founded in Moscow by Michael Maddox, an English entrepreneur, and Prince Urusov, a patron of the arts 1806: taken over by the Imperial government 1825: The present 2,000-seat Bolshoi Theatre opens. I think there will be ballet at one [venue] and opera at the other. It’s just a wonderful chance to see so much Shostakovich which we very rarely have the opportunity to see. To go ahead with the season, the Mariinsky has needed backing from the Russian Federation government, the foundation of the pools philanthropist Peter Moores and the Mariinsky Theatre Trust, whose 1,000 members have been supporting the company’s work since 1993. Caroline Gonzalez-Pintado, the Theatre Trust’s chief executive, said: ” The idea was really Gergiev’s baby, we’re just very pleased to be able to make it a reality.” She added: “I don’t think there will be an evening when the Mariinsky ballet is on stage at the same time as the Bolshoi ballet is on stage.