We had a very entertaining weekend at the end of January that year, seeing Feelgood on the Friday and then Entertaining Mr Sloane on the Saturday…
…just before heading off for a wonderful holiday in South-East Asia.
On the Friday evening, we saw Feelgood. We would have eaten at Harry Morgans before the show. I remember this play having a superb cast: Jeremy Swift, Henry Goodman, Amita Dhiri, Nigel Planer, Pearce Quigley, Sian Thomas, Nigel Cooke and Jonathan Cullen (according to my log), and being lots of fun. Max Stafford-Clark directed it. It transferred to the Garrick with a slightly different cast – Peter Capaldi taking Jeremy Swift’s place. Here’s the Theatricalia entry for that one.
Nicholas de Jongh really liked it in The Standard, especially heaping praise on Henry Goodman’s performance:
Feelgood, de Jongh Standard 1 Feb 2001 Evening Standard (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com
Charles Spencer in the Telegraph gave it a short but positive review too:
Feelgood Spencer Telegraph 10 Feb 2001 The Daily Telegraph (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com
Our friend Michael Billington covered Feelgood in a general piece about political theatre at the start of 2001:
Feelgood plus, Billington Guardian 17 Feb 2001 The Guardian (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com
Billington concludes that article with a statement that seems oh so apposite as I write 25 years later:
…theatre is a place of information as well as entertainment and the more it cuts itself off from society – and relies on a mixture of anodyne musicals and Hollywood-star casting, the more it is doomed to glamorous irrelevance.