REVIEW: 4000 Days, Park Theatre ✭✭✭
Peter Quilter’s script is spiced with sarcasm and bouts of wit that get loud laughs from the audience, however the comedy perches awkwardly on the edge of big themes that remain undercooked.
Alistair McGowan
What have Playdays, End of the Rainbow and Finsbury Park all got in common?
With the UK premier of 4000 days fast approaching, BritishTheatre.com catches up with West End and Broadway playwright Peter Quilter to get the low down on his play’s month-long run at the Park Theatre – as well as the forthcoming UK tour of his smash-hit show End of the Rainbow. You started out as an actor and presenter – on Playdays no less! – What made you take the leap from acting to writing? I got together with a small group of actor friends and we decided we needed a showcase to attract casting directors. So I wrote a play for the three of us about Oscar Wilde titled Mirror of the Moon. We presented it on the Fringe and, one night, a representative of the Royal Court turned up and told me I should be working full-time as a playwright. They invited me into their Young Writers Group to … Read more
McGowan To Play Jimmy Savile At Park Theatre
Drawing on material from interviews, tv shows and transcripts, Jonathan Maitland’s An Audience With Jimmy Saville explores the most shocking sex scandal of our time. Writer Jonathan Maitland, whose acclaimed debut play Dead Sheep about Margaret Thatcher and Geoffrey Howe recently broke Park Theatre box office records, explains, “An Audience with Jimmy Savile is a drama based on real events. It uses material from multiple sources including books, transcripts of police interviews, witness statements and several official inquiries. It also uses testimony from face-to-face interviews given to me by survivors of abuse. Some scenes involving Jimmy Savile have been created but they use actual and paraphrased quotes from him over a period of 60 years. Whilst researching this play I have met and worked with groups such as NAPAC (a leading charity for adults abused in childhood) Phil’s Petition and Slater and Gordon (the Law firm representing more than 160 … Read more
