How It's Used

“At the height of his celebrity, with two plays on in the West End, [Oscar] Wilde found himself manipulated by [Lord Alfred] Douglas into a family feud.”

—John Lahr in the Introduction to The Plays of Oscar Wilde, (New York:  Vintage Books, 1988), p. xxxvi.

“This sort of effusive praise can also be witnessed far from Broadway. Opera fans have never shied away from huzzahs (not to mention boos), but lately even classical music crowds have been getting in on the act—and out of their seats. Modern dance and ballet fans might be a tad more discerning, but they regularly rise up when the curtain falls. Even British audiences, who used to insist that they ‘only stand for the Queen,’ have been seen leaping to their feet on the West End like junior high school drama students on a class trip to ‘Cats.’”

—Frank Rich, “The Tyranny of the Standing Ovation,” The New York Times, December 21, 2003.

"[Peter] Cook and [Dudley] Moore toured widely, including London's West End, New York's Broadway (where they won a Tony Award) and a five-month stage tour of Australia and New Zealand, 'Behind the Fridge,' beginning in 1971. They made several TV and feature films, including the 1967 cult hit 'Bedazzled' with Cook as the devil and Moore a suicidal short-order cook accepting seven wishes in return for his soul. They also created Derek and Clive, two foul-mouthed characters who found worldwide fame after bootleg recordings of their obscene conversations were officially released. Along the way Cook opened the Establishment, a comedy and live music club in London's Soho and then New York, and became a majority shareholder in the satirical magazine Private Eye."

—Lenny Annlow, "Two Men Walk into a Sketch," The Sydney Morning Herald, November 21, 2009.

"While her formal inventiveness is thrilling, [Caryl] Churchill also has a following among those who admire her well-known socialist and feminist politics. And yet, her plays are no mere polemics preaching to the choir. 'Serious Money,' for instance, was her first play to transfer to the West End–and the very bankers she was satirizing flocked to it. In Greece, meanwhile, 'Top Girls' was misrepresented not as a play concerned with the limitations of individualistic feminism, but as an argument that a woman's place is in the home."

—J. Kelly Nestruck, "Setting the stage for England's other Churchill," The Globe and Mail, January 23, 2010, p. R6.

"Don't we know it all, already? As entertainment, the Chilcot inquiry is pretty good, in a rarified way. It marches on with its familiar cast. The strutters strut, the lawyer-types drip lawyerese, Tony Blair remains better at 'doing sincerity' than anyone except Tom Hanks. We have moments of drama, such as Elizabeth Wilmshurst being applauded. It's a classy West End performance, the first draft of a David Hare play."

—Jackie Ashley, "Here lies New Labour—the party that died in Iraq: Chilcot is a reminder that the war led to poisonous infighting that has destroyed progressive politics for a generation," The Guardian (UK), February 1, 2010.

Links

Related on eAlmanac
The Four Cardinal Directions
The Great White Way

Beyond eAlmanac
Wikipedia article on West End Theatre