Sunday, July 17, 2011

The Flying Karamazov Brothers at The Vaudeville Theatre

By Charlotte Capel


Take four entertainers who're musicians, comedians, acrobats, dancers, jugglers and philosophers. Add kilts, moustaches, musical instruments, two thousand cardboard boxes, tutus, topical satire as well as the ability to juggle anything. Who're they? The Flying Karamazov Brothers. They don't fly, they're not Russian and they're not brothers. But they're the funniest, most thought-provoking, kilt-wearing, clever idiots in town.

Direct from Broadway, this multi-faceted, mischievous and marvellous show is at the Vaudeville Theatre in London's West End from June 9th, their initial pay a visit to to London for 17 years. For a strictly limited run you'll be entranced by the wit, comedy and the virtuoso abilities of these world renowned maverick masters of new-vaudeville in their new London residence.

Concise history of the Vaudeville Theatre London: The present-day building will be the third theatre to be constructed on this prominent Strand web site. The very first theatre, which had a capacity of 1,000 folks, opened in April 1870 under the management of H J Montague, David James and Thomas Thorne. The architect was C J Phipps. The very first production was a comedy by Andrew Halliday called For Love or Income. The auditorium was horseshoe shaped and built behind two houses, leaving little room for the provision of a foyer or, for that matter, any dressing rooms for the cast.

By 1889 Thomas Thorne had turn out to be sole lessee and had demolished the two houses, allowing him to expand the theatre onto the Strand. C J Phipps was as soon as again commissioned, constructing the Portland stone facade behind which the foyer and visitor facilities were constructed. The theatre reopened on 13th January 1891 with a production of Woodbarrow Farm.

Thorne sold off his interest after only a year to Agostino and Stephano Gatti. The Gattis made it through by producing further revivals and comedies, then joined forces with Charles Frohman to present a series of lengthy runring shows with Seymour Hicks and Ellaline Terris which includes Alice in Wonderland (1900), Scrooge (1901) and J M Barrie's Quality Street (1902).

The Gattis closed the theatre in 1925 for a complete interior refurbishment by architect Robert Atkinson as well as the builders Bovis Ltd. The constructing was made much more spacious with a higher roof and also the oblong auditorium that is present these days.

The first performance inside the present-day creating was a revue by Archie de Bear named R.S.V.P. in February 1926. Other productions of the time included Jack Hawkins and Dame Peggy Ashcroft in the Breadwinner, Sir John Mills in a play by his wife, Mary Hayley Bell, Men in Shadow (1942), and Dame Thora Hird in her West End debut, No Medals (1944).

Other substantial productions consist of Sybil Thorndike and Athene Seyler in Arsenic and Old Lace (1966), The Man Most Likely To (1968) with Leslie Phillips, Alastair Sim (and an early male full-frontal nude) in A Private Matter (1973), a play about STDs (then called VD) with Dame Maggie Smith referred to as Snap (1974), Glenda Jackson in Stevie (1977), Michael Frayn's Benefactors (1984), Joanna Lumley in Blithe Spirit (1986), Julia Mackenzie in an award-winning performance in Alan Ayckbourn's Woman in Mind (1986), Pauline Collins as Shirley Valentine (1988), David Hare's Skylight (1997), the award-winning South African musical from the Tricycle Theatre Kat as well as the Kings (1998), Bill Kenwright's production of The Chiltern Hundreds (1999) and Alison Steadman within the Memory of Water (1999).

2000 began with Macauley Culkin in Madame Melville, this was followed by a sequel to Ray Cooney's long-running Run for Your Wife known as Caught inside the Net (2001). The bulk of the new millennium has been taken up by the enormously productive Stomp (2002-07) which has now made way for Christian Slater's appearance in Swimming with Sharks (2007), The Importance of Being Earnest (2007), The Female of the Species (2008), Piaf (2008), The Rise and Fall of Little Voice (2009), Private Lives (2010), Jeff Goldblum and Mercedes Ruehl in the Prisoner of Second Avenue (2010) and An Ideal Husband (2010).




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