Coffee-Table Notes

Stephen Mulrine – poet, playwright, translator, teacher Born March 13, 1937; died January 14, 2020 Stephen Mulrine, who has died aged 82, was a writer whose craftsmanship extended to referring to himself as a wordsmith. As a poet, playwright and translator, however, his considerable output was rich both in artistry and construction. This was the case whether in his comic poem, Coming of the Wee Malkies, in his many translations of plays by Chekhov and other Russian writers, or in more contemporary fare such as Moscow Stations, his stage adaptation of Venedikt Yerofeev’s novel, which he also translated. In Mulrine’s version, Yerofeev’s story of a boozy intellectual travelling through Brezhnev’s Soviet-era Russia was brought to life by Tom Courtenay at the Traverse Theatre in Edinburgh before transferring to London’s West End, where Courtenay won a Best Actor award. The production transferred to New York, and was later broadcast on BBC Radio 3. As with much of Mulrine’s work

Willy Russell was in the pub before the first preview of his play, Educating Rita. The Liverpool-born playwright’s seriously funny two-hander about a hairdresser who enrols on an Open University literature course was about to open at the Royal Shakespeare Company’s rough and ready Warehouse space in what is now the Donmar, and he and director Mike Ockrent were seeking nervous refuge. They knew that the RSC had taken a chance on the play, and even though Russell had already had a west end hit a few years before with his Beatles-based musical, John, Paul, George, Ringo…and Bert, neither of them were sure what the response would be. “The Warehouse was in what was then quite a seedy part of Covent Garden, a bit like what Mathew Street was like when the original Cavern was there,” a now 72-year-old Russell remembers. “Mike and I were in the Crown pub, and we didn’t know what to expect. Julie Walters was playing Rita, but she had yet to become the great and much revered Julie Walters th

King’s Theatre, Edinburgh Four stars Ghosts are everywhere in Sally Abbott’s new play, brought to life by co-directors Kathy Burke and Scott Graham in Frantic Assembly’s twenty-fifth anniversary touring production. Not that anyone is talking to each other about it, preferring to offload their woes to the audience as one might to a diary, a blog or to the entire world by way of social media. Anything, then, but talking face to face, be it estranged sisters Ange and Clare, under-achieving mum Josie and her high-flying son Manny, or taxi driver Graham and his wife Bex. Each is kept apart by designer Morgan Large’s choreographed array of people-sized movable walls that are burled around by the cast between scenes, the frosted glass on each making any connection even harder. As lives intersect despite themselves, an accidental community of sorts is revealed that exposes an inherent good in people. Frantic Assembly may have come of age, but they’re still dealing with the sam