Bobbie & I caught this one just before it came off and I am so glad we did. I sense that it was Bobbie’s barrister crowd – she was still doing her pupillage at that time, who had persuaded her (and me through Bobbie) that you HAD to see this play before it comes off.
The last Friday evening – probably all that was available that last weekend of the run.
Gosh this play and production was good.
Here is the Theatricalia entry for this production.
Anthony Hopkins was predictably strong as the barely disguised Rupert Murdoch-type figure, Lambert Le Roux. Ah, South African, not Australian, so couldn’t possibly be about Murdoch, m’Lud.
Super supporting cast too: probably my first sighting of a young Bill Nighy, plus Tim McInnerny, Kate Buffery, Peter Blyth…
Milton Shulman enjoyed the fun but didn’t much like the play in The Standard:
Similarly, John Barber in The Telegraph thought the play should have focussed a bit more on the ethics and a bit less on the boistrous fun:
Pravda Barber Telegraph 3 May 1985 The Daily Telegraph (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.comEven Michael Billington sort-of agrees – the play offers little insight into what might be a more ethical Fleet Street – but still the play/production was highly entertaining:
Heck, we were kids. (Early 20s). We loved it. I remember that evening at the theatre fondly.
According to my diary, Bobbie and I went on for a “Turkish meal after, very nice”. I suspect that must have been Capital Kebab House, which was pretty much the only Turkish show in that part of town in those days. Astonishingly, that place is still there, decades later, in The Cut. I must try it again some time.
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