By Michael Coveney
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Michael Coveney: Battles in the Bubble

Producer Julius Green has a sold-out hit with his circus burlesque in the Assembly Rooms -- well, there are several very scantily clad ladies in the cast -- but he's still having trouble knowing whether it's night or day.

So is local artist and Turner Prize-winner Martin Creed -- he won for the light bulb which was turned on and off, you may remember -- who thanked us at the Traverse for coming tonight, when we'd come in the morning.

Traverse shows play at various times each day, so no actor can possibly have a fixed routine, nor can any of us, which is the problem. So many shows to see, so little time left to write about them.

I have already got the names of two people I know fairly well hopelessly wrong in print: Fiona Sturgeon Shea at the Traverse unaccountably became Fiona Sturges in this blog, and I saved myself just in time from dubbing Simon Callow's director,Tom Cairns, a long lost cousin of our own Whatsonstage.com reviewer Jo Caird.

My friend Gyles Brandreth, ensconced in a flat in North Bridge with his historian wife Michele Brown, told me over coffee in the Roxburgh yesterday morning that he has not yet seen any other shows, so busy is he with two of his own.

I'm excused going along to see his solo effort at the Pleasance as he said there was nothing in it I wouldn't have heard before. Which, actually, in his case, is a recommendation. He has some wonderful jokes and stories.

His other offering is Wonderland, in which Michael Maloney plays Lewis Carroll. At the technical rehearsal, alas, Maloney pulled a hamstring but has carried on, half-crippled, like the trouper he is.

Gyles tells me that when Maloney was on tour with Peter Bowles, he of the barathea blazer and shooting cuffs, Bowles got increasingly angered by Maloney's habit of turning up for reharsal every day with a scruffy backpack.

"What's in it?" he  finally asked. "My anger," replied Maloney. He packs all his troubles in his old kit bag and starts from scratch every day, and at every performance. Sounds like something we should all try. 

- by Michael Coveney

Any opinions expressed above do not represent the view of Whatsonstage.com nor any of its staff or contributors beyond the bylined author.

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	Michael Coveney: Tales from New York in Kinky Boots - 17th May 2013 blog
	Michael Coveney: Finsbury hails its local Park Theatre opening - 15th May 2013 blog
	Michael Coveney: Hooray for Halifax and Carrie's ENO debut - 13th May 2013 blog
	Michael Coveney: All change at Trafalgar, Liverpool and Finsbury Park - 10th May 2013 blog
	Michael Coveney: Critics come full Circle in centenary bash - 8th May 2013 blog
	Michael Coveney: High old time with High Tide in Halesworth - 7th May 2013 blog
	Michael Coveney: Hytner steams on, Sondheim scintillates - 2nd May 2013 blog
	Michael Coveney: Theatre queens and Paris low-life - 30th Apr 2013 blog
	Michael Coveney: Olivier big winners and Stratford long runners - 29th Apr 2013 blog
	Michael Coveney: Maria Miller basks in Ruth's Olympic glory - 26th Apr 2013 blog
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