Joseph shared a photo of the Haymarket Theatre this morning, as preparations are underway for the opening of Mr Foote's Other Leg at the Haymarket Theatre on Wednesday 28th October. Tickets are available from here. The play had wonderful reviews at Hampstead.
It's good to see Russell Beale snarling with vulgarity like a raddled old pole cat as he belittles Joseph Millson's handsome Garrick for his devotion to the Bard and Festival project in "Stretford," or trades affectionate insults and crude gossip with Garrick's doomed lover, Peg Woffington, deliciously played by Dervla Kirwan. What's On Stage
Director Richard Eyre gives this jocular romp an atmosphere of frivolous but intelligent amusement that subtly flatters the audience. The actors clearly adore the material. Simon Russell Beale plays Foote as a twinkly desperado whose camp charm hides deep layers of jealousy and anger. Joseph Millson, a great if underrated comedian, suggests that Garrick was a bombastic peacock with an air of monumental pomposity. The writer Ian Kelly does a marvellous turn as the future George III. He begins as an amiably bumbling Prince of Wales who acquires an icy hauteur once he ascends the throne. And Dervla Kirwan is brilliantly sexy as Foote’s comic partner, Peg. Spectator
Russell Beale conjures the sharp-tongued, beaming-eyed spirit of the one-legged wonder to perfection - a snug, portly fit for the tragicomic role, even if you wonder what happened to Foote’s fabled ability for mimickry. After a first-half climax that hurls you towards the bar, so excruciating is the simulated amputation, he pours liquid pathos into the remainder of the drama, evincing physical pain, melancholy homosexual pangs, and a Lear-like derangement. He’s superbly supported – not least by Dervla Kirwan as the outspoken Peg, Joseph Millson as the grand, endearingly earnest Garrick and Jenny Galloway as the flibbertigibbet Mrs Garner. Telegraph
Joseph Millson deliciously conveys the deferential, genteel simpers of the cautious, social-climbing Garrick, whose approach to power contrasts with Foote's free-wheeling, subversive energy and originality (Othello presented as a comedy, anyone?) that Russell Beale brings to such wonderfully unregenerate life. Independent
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