Friends With Benefits
While having a curry on Brick Lane last Friday, my football teammates got talking about residuals and their importance in light of the WGA and DGA strikes last year. In today’s streamer climate, larger upfront fees are aimed to restrict the creators’ and actors’ share of a programme’s long-term success. So more cash up front but if a show goes on to become a hit, the artists can see none of it.
Shows that gain cult status like Friends are unbelievably profitable. Warner Bros Discovery (who now own Friends) receive $1 billion a year in residual license fees, with each of the six cast rumoured to earn 2%. That’s $20 million. Each. Every year. From a show first aired 30 years ago. Even minor characters reap the awards. Vincent Ventresca - who played Monica's boyfriend Fun Bobby in two episodes - revealed that he receives $2,000 a year from the show. Some things are definitely worth fighting for.
A Plague on Theatre Houses
Rebellious subjects, enemies to peace,
Profaners of this neighbour-stained steel
....you men, you beasts
That quench the fire of your pernicious rage
With purple fountains issuing from your veins....
Jamie Lloyd’s Romeo and Juliet has apparently already secured a Broadway transfer before it’s even opened in London. However, the production is already marred with controversy after Fran Amewudah-Rivers, who is playing Juliet, has faced horrible online racist abuse, seemingly from American fans of her co-lead Tom Holland. Fran, who was Oxford University Drama President has been silent thus far but a letter, co-authored by actress Susan Wokoma and writer Somalia Nonyé Seaton, calls out the "twisted ugly abuse" while celebrating Fran’s West End debut. It was signed by over 800 black cultural figures. The most commonly shared tweet in the onslaught put photos of Amewudah-Rivers and Holland next to a still of Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes in Baz Luhrmann’s 1996 film Romeo+Juliet with the comment “they are rewriting history before our very eyes”. The idiocy on every level suggests this was composed as a base and senseless provocation, possibly by AI. The theatre company behind the production has condemned the "deplorable" abuse. It’s a nasty example of twisted American Gen Z adoration on Twitter and Instagram spiralling out of control. The best revenge is success.
Shows To Book Now
Multiple Casualty Incident by Sami Ibrahim, directed by Jaz Woodcock-Stewart at The Yard, 27 April - 8 June
Sami Ibrahim’s last play, two Palestinians go dogging, at The Royal Court received glowing reviews for his beautiful script (I went to an early preview and the direction was a bit shoddy but I enjoyed) . Teaming up with Jaz Woodcock-Stewart (Paradise Now!) this looks to be an exciting evening exploring the complexities of humanitarian work closer to home.
Oedipus at The Old Vic, 21 Jan–29 Mar
Like London busses, The Old Vic have announced they are to put on Ella Hickson's adaptation Oedipus, to challenge Robert Icke’s West End production, also coming at the end of the year. Rami Malek (Academy Award winner for Bohemian Rhapsody and malicious villain in No Time to Die) and Indira Varma (of Game of Thrones fame) star. The production will be “an intimate and revelatory version of Sophocles’ transcendent tragedy”, co-directed by Matthew Warchus and Hofesh Shechter. Surely any chance to see Rami on stage is worth taking.
To Watch
Baby Reindeer out now on Netflix
It was at Edinburgh Festival that I first saw Richard Gadd. He was hovering awkwardly by the bar near the Roundhouse and caught my eye with this incredibly nervous energy. I didn’t recognise him but an hour or so later I was watching his show, Baby Reindeer, about his own experience with a stalker plaguing his standup routines. What starts with a cup of tea ends in a multi-year campaign of harassment that drives Gadd to the brink. The stalker sent Gadd 41,000 emails over the course of three years. That’s 37 emails a day (a pace that even my Substack can’t keep up with). This show for Netflix has been a few years in the making and I can’t wait to dive in.
Back To Black in cinemas now
Sam Taylor-Johnson’s film about Amy Winehouse is out to very mixed reviews. Marisa Abela (who rose to fame in HBO’s Industry) plays Amy though apparently lacking the rougher edges. Eddie Marsan and Lesley Manville co-star with Jack O’Connell as the coolly charismatic and muscular presence of her no-good husband and addiction-enabler Blake Fielder-Civil.
Challengers, in cinemas April 26.
Delicious, delusional, and downright horrific—that’s how Zendaya and Josh O’Connor are describing their characters in Challengers. I hope the film isn’t like that too. It’s a new sexy tennis drama from Luca Guadagnino (Call Me Your Name) out in cinemas in a couple of weeks.
Reflections
Uncle Vanya at The Orange Tree, Richmond
We shall go on living, Uncle Vanya. We shall live through a long, long succession of days and tedious evenings… When our times comes we shall die submissively, and over there, beyond the grave, we shall say that we’ve suffered, that we’ve wept, that we’ve had a bitter life, and God will take pity on us. And then, Uncle dear, we shall both begin to know a lift that is bright and beautiful… We shall rest!
My sister has pointed out that every edition of this newsletter has mentioned Chekhov. I’m not bucking that trend now. Papa Stonehill and I headed off last night to watch Trevor Nunn’s production of Uncle Vanya in the wonderfully intimate Orange Tree Theatre in Richmond. Traditional in its staging and setting, the show was a delight, beautifully acted and staged, funny and profoundly moving. Vanya is the story of Middlemarch told in a couple of days; unrequited love abound and suffocating reverence aplenty. In a big cast of big performances, it is Madeleine Gray’s radiant Sonja that stands out, simpering over the drunken doctor. What a play.