This article is taken from the October 2024 issue of The Critic. To get the full magazine why not subscribe? Right now we’re offering five issues for just £10.

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Vic’s vapours

With London’s Old Vic the latest theatre finding itself under siege from Sir Mark Rylance and comrades, demanding a severing of generous ties with the Royal Bank of Canada (“fossil fuel financiers!” “war investors!” etc), an embattled spokesman wails: “As a registered charity with no regular public subsidy, we’re reliant on ticket sales and philanthropic and corporate donations.”

Whilst the venue obsesses over all manner of financial upheavals surely to follow should Rylance and mob get their way (those ethically acceptable alternatives tending to be unclear), the King’s favourite Shakespearean need hardly trouble himself with such dreary details.

Thank goodness for theatricals of Sir Mark’s means who can afford to see the bigger picture!

Amongst the first to publicly raise midlife alarm bells when housewives’ favourite Hugh Bonneville’s “dramatic weight loss” made headlines, one takes no pleasure in noting my concerns were soon followed by confirmation that the long-serving first Mrs Bonneville was being put out to pasture.

Just when it seemed dear Hugh might finally have slipped back into his more comfortable, well-nourished self whilst embracing showbiz bachelor life, up pops a dazzling blonde “vegan influencer”, seen on his arm at the time of writing.

Heaven knows what further physical transformations await the poor fellow.

A humble doff of the cap to West End working-class hero Mr Graham, after the ubiquitous playwright used his MacTaggart lecture in Edinburgh to warn against one’s background “limiting opportunities” in the theatrical/TV worlds.

What with all that now fashionable hostility aimed at thespians from the middle classes upwards, how heartening to hear we can count on James’ influential support!

Having previously revealed there’d been a pleasing encounter in the town of Grasse back in early summer — resulting in a rekindling of relations with a 74-year-old firecracker of note — one’s obliged to report sinister developments.

Whilst this delightful little actress (retired) assured yours truly at regular intervals she was as happy as could be to find fate reuniting us half a century on, the gloomier presence of two middle-aged offspring proved ominous as weeks progressed.

Matters came to a head at the beginning of September when sweet Monique, a widow coincidentally of some means, courtesy of a dead French industrialist, foolishly let slip to son and daughter over breakfast that she’d agreed to bankroll my upcoming one-man stage tour, Only The Liars Remain — a “devastating exposé of theatrical betrayal spanning 1971 to the present day” which, as I’d repeatedly explained to Monique, simply has to be told.

Though I’m not fluent in the Gallic tongue, the level of bile this provoked from aforementioned Generation X beneficiaries beggared belief — not least when they bizarrely insisted on presenting their now thoroughly distressed mother with damning “evidence” amassed at my expense!

Realising one’s summer had finally concluded, this travelling trouper speedily departed for Nice Airport with all possible dignity.

I’m a monkey’s uncle

Returning to earl’s court following those traumatic events in the South of France, one found the nephew/lodger’s trademark arrogance reaching new levels since we’d gone our separate ways in July.

Buoyed by his lead role in a “four-star show” at the Edinburgh Fringe, not to mention his six-and-a-half minutes screen time on Netflix (I counted), this preposterous figure has taken to wearing the kind of garish transatlantic garb all too commonly sported by public schoolboy actors disguising origins.

Though his uncle must acknowledge a degree of professional aptitude may have genetically passed into the boy’s veins, evidence suggests it remains overwhelmingly diluted by parents of less pleasing calibre. Having enjoyed the merest of brushes with what he deems “success”, one shudders to imagine how monstrous the young man might turn should this good fortune continue.

Not for the first time of late, one’s TV acting commitments involve sitting earnestly around a table of bearded elders in what I’m assured is a “fantasy epic”. Though we all grumble about the meagre/lousy lines available, it at least offers the chance to catch up with fellow seasoned character actors also finding themselves in this dire predicament.

With an array of celebrity thespians — headed by Tony Hopkins, no less — publicly incensed by the reported £4 million sale of the former Actors Centre building in Covent Garden, one is again proud to be part of a profession so united in condemnation of this cultural vandalism.

Ongoing declarations of outrage by our famous stars of stage and screen surely count for more than crasser suggestions they might dip into their own considerable pockets and save the place.

After displaying such inflated levels of grandeur for all these decades, how very entertaining to see former sitcom favourite Robert Lindsay belatedly attempt to clamber aboard the class warrior bandwagon!

Blessed release

Loony boomer Mr Blessed is due to make what’s being optimistically billed as a “final” stage appearance in his native Yorkshire on 25 October, once again looking back on his life and times whilst retelling those ludicrous porkies still dutifully reported in the newspapers.

Though the prospect of Brian at last being dragged away in chains would be a surely sensible development for all concerned in the autumn of 2024, one fears this swan song may be the imagination of an overzealous northern publicist.

Those however still considering attending this officially “historic farewell” are promised such surefire gems as Brian “punching a polar bear and Harold Pinter”, “mud wrestling with President Putin” and the day he became “alpha male in a gorilla sanctuary”.

Deemed a “national treasure” by vacuous media types — and otherwise by those of sounder judgement — Miriam Margolyes’ disastrous appearance on Radio 4’s Front Row had to be speedily edited. Whilst the BBC persists in indulging the old horror on the airwaves, rest assured time will come to look unkindly on this sorry farce.

Long boring for Britain about his attachment to grim-upnorth origins, Patrick Stewart was at last honoured with the “freedom of the borough” by folk over at Huddersfield Town Hall.

With news of the upcoming grand ceremony eagerly publicised by Patrick’s starstruck hosts, it was only later delicately established that this most passionate of local lads had deigned to briefly accept said honour via computer screen from a lesser-known corner of West Yorkshire … more closely resembling California.

Chunky player Sir Simon Russell Beale eagerly announces he’s ready to give us “his Cleopatra”. Though Simon’s willingness to embrace the spirit of the times isn’t in doubt, one fears a portrayal closer to Dame Biggins than Dame Judi.