West End Review, Dec 2012-Jan 2013: Mark Shenton and regular guests Kate Bassett, David Benedict and Matt Wolf cast a critical eye over some of the major London openings, beginning with Lucy Prebble’s The Effect (National), winner of this year’s Critics Circle Award for Best Play, as well as Best Musical winner Sondheim’s Merrily We Roll Along (Menier Chocolate Factory), plus Phyllida Lloyd’s all-female Julius Caesar (Donmar Warehouse), Pinero’s The Magistrate, starring John Lithgow (National) and Simon Russell Beale in Peter Nichols’ Privates on Parade (Noel Coward Theatre), The Bodyguard (Adelphi) and Viva Forever! (Piccadilly).
THE GENIUS OF ANTHONY BURGESS (1/2) Panel discussion about A Clockwork Orange (Soho Theatre), chaired by Soho’s artistic director Steve Marmion, with Alexandra Spencer-Jones, the director of the production, plus Andrew Biswell (author of The Real life of Anthony Burgess) and John Sutherland (Emeritus Lord Northcliffe Professor of English Literature at University College London). With an extract from Burgess’s reissued Napoleon Symphony (Serpent’s Tail) read by Martin McCreadie, the actor who plays Alex.