Theatre Adventures in That London

So tomorrow, I’m heading off to That London for a theatre-binge-that-was-never-meant-to-be-a-theatre-binge-but-sort-of-turned-out-that-way type thing. 

Honestly, I only intended to go see Tom Hiddleston flexing his theatrical muscles in Coriolanus, then have a quiet wonder around the city for the first time in two years.  But other plays got announced, my credit card got unleashed, and now I’ve got three plays booked for the three nights I’m there.

On Wednesday I will (provided the transport gods are kind to me and don’t mess up my plans) be watching former Time Lord Matt Smith play Patrick Bateman in a musical production of American Psycho.  Now, I don’t know about you, but I have lost count of the amount of times I have thought American Psycho needed some killer song and dance numbers.  Will there be a catchy number to accompany Bateman running around with a prostitute’s decapitated head on his cock?  This blogger certainly hopes so.

Matt Smith is currently top of my laminated list of People I Desire To Do All The Things with, so I admit the prospect of watching him take his shirt off live on stage is highly exciting to me.  Not that I approve of objectifying people like that, so it is also highly exciting to be there to see my most favourite of Doctors move on to his first post-Gallifreyan project.  But mostly the shirtless thing.  I’m really shallow.

Come Thursday, we have the original purpose of my trip – Coriolanus.  I admit, Coriolanus isn’t exactly my favourite of Shakespeare’s plays.  But, oh my, isn’t that funny, there’s another pretty shirtless man involved in this production (I honestly didn’t realise quite how shallow I was until this point).  To be honest, Hiddleston, as lovely and fragrant and I’m sure he is, wasn’t the big draw for me here – Mark Gatiss as Menenius on the other hand, I’m all over that.  Since booking I’ve also discovered we get the added bonus of Hadley Fraser as Aufidius and good lord, we have ourselves a Shakespearean party.

Now, I understand there has been some bother at the Donmar Warehouse with this particular play.  Up until Friday, Hiddleston had been doing a spot of Meet & Greet with the fans afterwards, who subsequently ran onto Tumblr screaming “OH MY GOD I MET LOKI I MET LOKI” and so forth.  However, some over-enthusiastic fangirls chasing Hiddles down the street on his way to the tube and generally invading his personal space has resulted in the Meet & Greets being cancelled for the rest of the run.  Which is obviously a bit of a downer.  But it’s not often I go to see an actor pretty much on top of his game do some Serious Theatre Business, so there’s still plenty to enjoy.

And if it’s Friday night it must be Ben Whishaw, or more specifically Whishaw’s latest play, Mojo.  I admit, my knowledge of Jez Butterworth’s play comes from a not-entirely-brilliant film adaptation back in 1997 but again, the prospect of seeing Whishaw acting on stage was too good to miss.  Yes, yes, there are shallow forces at work here, he is after all the prettiest little deer in the enchanted forest.  But he is also generally agreed to be one best actors around at the moment, and watching him play a character whose mental stability basically disappears completely by the end of the play ought to be a treat.  In the weird sort of way that watching an actor’s mental state crumble on stage can be considered a treat.

The production appears to be geared towards a younger female audience if the rest of the cast list is anything to go by – Colin Morgan (you might recognise him as Merlin) and Rupert Grint (Ron Weasley in the Harry Potter films) help make up the numbers, not to mention the terribly pretty Tom Rhys Harries.  Not that this is a bad thing of course, provided the intended audience can behave themselves in the same way the Coriolanus audiences perhaps haven’t been.

And that’s the rest of my week.  Throw in a Heston Blumenthal lunch and a trendy Saturday brunch, and gosh, it’s hard to be me.