Hauling Like A Brooligan

Stephen Gallagher

Category: theatre

  • The Movies, Mr Fairbanks, and Me

    Looking back, 1977 was a key year for me. I didn’t rocket to fame, I didn’t take British culture by storm – though I’m sure those were the dreams I was having at the time. What I did in ’77 was to stage a play with a local amateur company (a talented bunch who deserved…

  • A Hero’s Update

    Here‘s a page of reviews for A Hero’s Journey, mine included. Can you type with gritted teeth? The show played to full houses and even made money. My first piece of staged writing, longer ago than I’m willing to admit, was a similar venture that attracted exactly one review. And it was a stinker.

  • A Hero’s Journey

    A lightning strike on Brooligan Village has knocked out phones and broadband for the past ten days, which has put a crimp on my blogging and tweeting while forcing me to get some actual work done. But here’s where I’ll be later this week. I have tickets for A Hero’s Journey, an hour-long comedy playing…

  • Theatre Ghosts

    How cool is this: the late Ian Richardson steps in to haunt the refurbished RSC theatre.

  • Culture Vultures and Slender Pickings

    There are many advantages to living outside London as I do, but there are drawbacks too. If you want all that cosmopolitan stuff, you have to be there in the cosmopolis. Or whatever you call it. Most of the time it’s no big deal. I’ve got green fields, a dog and a big-screen TV, and…

  • The Thirty-Nine Steps

    I recently went back to John Buchan’s novel The Thirty Nine Steps, the template for all modern on-the-run thrillers from The Fugitive to 24 to the entire Jason Bourne trilogy. The re-reading confirmed my remembered impressions. The book has terrific narrative velocity. It also falls apart to an utterly unmemorable end, and the story doesn’t…

  • Anthony Minghella

    I turned on the radio for the lunchtime news a few minutes ago, and was dismayed to hear the announcement of the death of Anthony Minghella at the age of 54. I swore out loud, and scared the dog. Anthony and I were fellow students in Hull University’s Drama Department, back in the mid-seventies. I’m…

  • Sam’s Way

    Back when I was with the Curtis Brown agency, one of my agents handled the Samuel Beckett estate and was regularly obliged to engage with theatre companies who wanted to revise or reinterpret the plays in some radical manner. At which point the producers usually put out a press release portraying her as an enemy…

  • At Least it’s not the Show’s Fault

    “Idol: The Musical” shuts down after just one performanceThe producer of the Off-Broadway production, which opened on Sunday night, blamed a lack of advance ticket sales, a lack of positive feedback from audience members and critics and a lack of sustainable financial resources. See? It’s never the obvious reason. (Source: TVTattle).