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2 months ago
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Jim Carter, who famously played Carson the master butler on Downton Abbey, clearly was taken by the leading artist giving a terrifically moving performance as Dolly Gallagher Levi upon the London Palladium stage. “That’s my wife,” he declared during the interval.
Indeed it was. Imelda Staunton was creating a gold-standard portrait of the meddlesome fixer at the heart of the landmark musical Hello, Dolly! created by Jerry Herman and Michael Stewart from Thornton Wilder’s The Matchmaker.
“It’s a brilliant production,” Carter told me.
“The problem is,” he continued, ”I can’t see anyone else on stage. I can only look at her. I’m sitting there going, ‘Wow!’”
Totally understandable, because the other 2,200 members of the audience were falling in love with her as well.
“I hadn’t realized the show was this funny and this romantic,” observed theatrical knight Derek Jacobi, who was seated across the aisle from Carter and his daughter Bessie Carter, best known for her role as Prudence Featherington in Bridgerton.
However, one theater executive, while impressed with director Dominic Cooke’s gorgeous production and with Staunton’s acting, felt that the role should have been played by a Jewish thespian.
“Imelda’s Irish,” the executive sniffed. ”And that matters to some of us.”
Being well aware of the sensitivities of appropriation, I politely nodded and moved on. It’s a delicate topic that perhaps this column should explore in depth another time.
But please let me add that a great artist such as Staunton should be allowed to put their stamp on any role.
Having now watched this Palladium Hello, Dolly! at a rehearsal and the full show twice, it’s clear that Cooke brilliantly has fulfilled the task of blending more of Wilder’s witty text from The Matchmaker with Herman’s glorious score.
“It’s a musical comedy and I wanted to underpin it with more of The Matchmaker,” Cooke said.
“And what Imelda’s done is to find the comedy and the poignancy of the role,” he added. “Dolly’s a woman coming out of grief to live again — that’s the crux of the story.”
Producer Michael Harrison noted that what Cooke has done “is to treat it like a classic, you know, the way the National Theatre would have treated it.”
Hello, Dolly! has a limited 10-week season at the Palladium. Harrison explained that it can’t be extended “because the Palladium has other shows booked in the minute we depart.”
Got me thinking — never a good thing — that what if Hello, Dolly! transferred to the National, if schedules allowed?
Wild and ridiculous, yes, but I put it out there because in show business, you never know.
OK, back on Planet Earth, it was good to see the likes of Hannah Waddingham, theatre impresario Cameron Mackintosh and Madeleine Lloyd Webber — who, essentially, controls husband Andrew Lloyd Webber’s West End theatre empire LW Theatres — at a big London opening night.
It looked as if every mover and shaker in London’s theatre-land was seated in the Palladium’s orchestra seats. They certainly lapped it all up, roaring with approval at the big set pieces choreographed by Bill Deamer, the biggest cheers going to his stupendous staging of the title number.
Hats off to the super cast that includes Andy Nyman, Jenna Russell, Tyrone Huntley, Harry Hepple, Emily Lane, Leo Abad and Emily Langham.
The afterparty was an extravagant affair, taking over the bars and foyers on every floor.
It’s been a good couple of days for Staunton. On Wednesday she received an Emmy nomination for her portrayal of the late Queen Elizabeth II in Netflix drama The Crown, followed by the year’s biggest West End first night so far this year.
