Olivier Award winner and Miranda star Patricia Hodge will join the cast of Peter Nichols’ funny and moving masterpiece A Day in the Death of Joe Egg. Hodge will star opposite Toby Stephens (Oslo, Lost in Space) and Claire Skinner (Outnumbered, The Father). The production opens at London’s Trafalgar Studios on 21 September (Press Night 2 October). Hodge made her West End debut under the watchful eye of Bob Fosse in Pippin at The National Theatre and has starred in classics like Look Back In … [Read more...]
Trafalgar Studios London Reviews & News - Book Tickets Online
Trafalgar Studios
Venue and Travel Information
Nearest Tube: Charing Cross
Tube Lines: Bakerloo, Northern
Directions from nearest tube: Turn left on the main road Strand. Follow Trafalgar Square around onto Whitehall and the theatre’s on your right.
Railway Station: Charing Cross
Within Congestion Zone: Yes
Venue Facilities: Air conditioned, Bar, Infrared hearing loop, Toilets
Trafalgar Studios London: Formerly the Whitehall Theatre, Trafalgar Studios is now two modern theatre studios in one building close to Trafalgar Square in the West End. Architects Tim Foster and John Muir have created two new intimate and dynamic theatre studios that has injected vibrancy and excitement into the venue. The Trafalgar Studios opened with the RSC’s production of Othello, which was followed by the Watermill Theatre’s acclaimed production of Sweeney Todd.
The Whitehall theatre originally opened in 1930 with a transfer of The Way to Treat a Woman by Walter Hackett (who was also the theatre’s licensee). He presented several more very successful plays of his own until leaving in 1934. The theatre continued to build its reputation for popular modern comedies throughout the 1930s and is today at the forefront of West End theatre.
During the war this tried and tested formula was rejected in favour of revue shows, which were very popular elsewhere in the West End. In 1942 The Whitehall Follies was launched, featuring a non-stop performance by Phyllis Dixey, and audiences flocked in, mostly due to the fact that the celebrated Miss Dixey was the first stripper in the West End! In the 1980s under Ian B Albery, there was extensive refurbishment to match the new regime of high-quality theatre. Many of the building’s unique art deco features were retained, and the Whitehall reopened with a successful revival of J B Priestley’s When We are Married.
Highlights of the late eighties and early nineties include Run for Your Wife, Alan Ayckbourn’s Absurd Person Singular and A Tribute to the Blues Brothers. Other popular productions include Cooking With Elvis starring Frank Skinner, Only the Lonely, Trainspotting and John Godber’s Bouncers. The theatre has also played host to radio and television shows and live theatre running concurrently.
Actually by Anna Ziegler at Trafalgar Studios | Review
Casual sex between human beings is murky business. The intertwining of flesh on flesh is never the uncomplicated act the animal kingdom enjoys, rather it's a mash up of flirtation, power plays and fleeting satisfaction that sometimes comes with a hefty price. In Anna Ziegler's 2017 two-character play, Actually, sex is not just a simple act of coitus between two Princeton students, but a political football tossed back and forth in describing whether the sex they shared was consensual or an act of … [Read more...]
Toby Stephens and Claire Skinner star in A Day in the Death of Joe Egg
Toby Stephens (Oslo, Lost in Space) and Claire Skinner (Outnumbered, The Father) will make their long-awaited returns to the West End stage this autumn in Peter Nichols’ (Privates on Parade, Passion Play) funny and moving masterpiece A Day in the Death of Joe Egg. Directed by Simon Evans (Killer Joe, Arturo Ui), this revival of Nichols’ acclaimed bittersweet comedy reunites two of the greatest actors of their generation. The stars, who last worked together 18 years ago on the award-winning BBC … [Read more...]
Review of EQUUS at Trafalgar Studios
“Only connect,” wrote EM Forster (1879-1970), referenced in one of the most engaging plays of recent years, The Inheritance. I’m sorry to report that I struggled to connect with this production of Equus - though it may not be the production’s fault, as it happens. I suspect it has become a play of its time: having premiered at the National Theatre in 1973, the world has in some ways moved on - advances in psychiatry in the last generation has seen an increasing awareness of the importance of … [Read more...]
Review of Dark Sublime at Trafalgar Studios
Dark Sublime is a superb 60 to 90-minute play. Unfortunately, it lasts for well over two hours and, while the script is peppered with many fresh and hilarious one-liners, Michael Dennis’s homage to sci-fi tv gives new meaning to the word “padded”. The play is set in the present day and centres on Marianne, an actress with Emmerdale credentials best known for a 1970s sci-fi series for ITV, the Dark Sublime of the title. Although Marianne is played by Star Trek TNG’s Marina Sirtis, it’s clear … [Read more...]
Full cast announced for Dark Sublime at Trafalgar Studios
Joining Marina Sirtis (Star Trek: The Next Generation) as she makes her West End debut are theatre titans Jacqueline King (Doctor Who, BBC; Spring Storm, National Theatre) and Simon Thorp (Hard Sun, BBC; Royal Shakespeare Company), esteemed actor and LQBTQ+ campaigner Sophie Ward (Young Sherlock Holmes, Amblin Entertainment; Jane Eyre, BBC Films) alongside one of the most exciting up and coming UK actors Kwaku Mills (good dog, UK Tour; The End of Eddy, UK Tour). Stage and screen star Mark Gatiss … [Read more...]
Vincent River by Philip Ridley at Trafalgar Studios | Review
Looking at Philip Ridley’s script for Vincent River, the first page and a half is dispensed with altogether in this production, plunging the audience directly into the dialogue, at quite a fast pace, which only gets faster before a long monologue by Davey (Thomas Mahy). In this monologue, the events of the show’s off-stage critical incident (which happened some weeks before the evening in which the play is set) are recounted in a manner that I can only describe as a verbal version of projectile … [Read more...]