Your Girl in London: What I’ve seen so far

Plays and musicals, with star ratings:

Pygmalion with Tim Pigott-Smith (from The Jewel in the Crown glory)**** He was chewing up the scenery but good, and Eliza was enchanting. No happy ending here, which would have pleased Shaw, the old grouch.

Never So Good with Jeremy Irons (about British PM Harold MacMillan)**** Britain throughout the mid-century, with scandals aplenty, including the long-running affair between MacMillan’s wife and a British gangster. Jolly good fun in the Suez.

War and Peace, a two-part, six-hour dramatization of the epic novel done in the style of the Nicholas Nickleby that was such a hit several years ago.***** Lovely, imaginative theatre, and dinner at McDonalds across the street between Parts I and II.

Marguerite, a new musical by Michel LeGrand and the Les Miz team that retells the La Traviata story, only this time in Vichy France.**** Beautiful LeGrand melodies (even if he did steal his major theme from La Boheme).

Fram, a new (and not very good) play at the National Theatre about the Norwegian explorer Nanssen and his efforts to ease the Russian Famine at the turn of the century.** Think Bono on the Volga. Nanssen wasn’t very successful, either.

The Year of Magical Thinking with Vanessa Redgrave as Joan Didion reflecting on the deaths of her husband and daughter.**** Sharing the same space and the same air with a legend. Beautifully staged.

The 39 Steps, a bit of Hitchcockian silliness in Piccadilly Circus.**** Tourist fare, but tons of fun.

A gay coming-of-age story at the Donmar Warehouse that wasn’t very original or memorable.* Gay angst can be great fodder for theatre, but would you guys please quit blaming your mothers?

Major Barbara at the National Theatre. ** Heavyweight Shaw, with a ponderous overbloated Simon Russell Beale as Undershaft.

RSC productions of Henry IV Part II,** Henry V**** and Richard III**** at the Roundhouse. An ambitious mounting of the entire War of the Roses saga, from Richard II on. But each production is very unique, with a hubba-hubba Prince Hal.

Needless to say, when we get home, The Spouse and I will be eating ramen noodles, canned soup and day-old bread for the rest of the summer.