Showing results by author "Reggie Oliver" in All Categories

There was a time before the Great War when Petropol was the most fashionable resort in the Crimea. If you arrived by steamer, you would have disembarked onto a stone jetty that extended a long grey arm into the oily smooth waters of the Black Sea.

What is it about dealers in rare books and manuscripts? One would have to go a long way to meet one who was not a little strange, and Enoch Stapleton was no exception to the rule.

Three weeks after I had arrived in Nairobi in January 1976 my father wrote to me. I took it to be a sign that he was reconciled to the fact that his only son had decided to join a theatre company in what he called 'the back of beyond'.

I knew Lord Charles Purefoy in the 1970s, but then so did everyone. I had also known him in the 1960s when we were at school together, and in the same house.

'I think we can all agree,' said Professor Drew, 'that the Giacometti Crucifixion is one of the great masterpieces of modern art - did you say something Dr Corcoran?'

Against a black backdrop strewn with stars the silver figure in a long, floating dress sang and swirled, the little silk-shod feet mirrored in the polished black floor. Her voice trilled and swooped like an upper-class nightingale, with those odd strangulated vowels so alien to us today.

The settings and characters in Reggie Oliver's fifth collection of 'strange' stories are as varied and unusual as ever, though, as in previous volumes, the theatre forms the milieu of a number of his tales. But the theatres are not just English ones, in the provinces and the West End: one is on the Black Sea; another in post-colonial Kenya. Themes are equally varied, but underlying all is a deep sense of the spiritual under-currents just below the surface of everyday existence, and the precariousness of 'normality'.

What's the worst thing about being a celebrity? The intrusive press coverage? Forget it! I do. No. It's being roped into these charity projects, because nowadays you've got to be hands on, or they mark you down as a complete toe-rag.

It was, I suppose, a typical gangster's funeral. There were the extravagantly insincere floral tributes: TO REG, A DIAMOND GEEZER in white carnations; there was 'My Way' played by the reluctant organist; there was the coffin borne by six burly, black-coated thugs into a church which Reg would never have entered in his lifetime except to marry or to bury.

Reggie Oliver is a stage actor and playwright. His biography of Stella Gibbons was praised as "a triumph" by Hilary Spurling in the Daily Telegraph, his play Winner Takes All, was described as "the funniest evening in London", by Michael Billington in The Guardian, and his adaptation of Hennequin and Delacour's Once Bitten opened at the Orange Tree Theatre in London in December 2010. THE BRIGHTON REDEMPTION: There is a very great deal of vice in Brighton. Even though I arrived here only a few days ago, I have already seen it with my own eyes. But that, I suppose, in a way, is why I am here.

Reggie Oliver is a stage actor and playwright. His biography of Stella Gibbons was praised as "a triumph" by Hilary Spurling in the Daily Telegraph, his play Winner Takes All, was described as "the funniest evening in London", by Michael Billington in The Guardian, and his adaptation of Hennequin and Delacour's Once Bitten opened at the Orange Tree Theatre in London in December 2010. COUNTESS OTHO: I loathe fans. I realise I shouldn't be saying this. The correct thing for actors to say is that fans are the lifeblood of the theatre: we love and respect them. No, we don't.

Reggie Oliver is a stage actor and playwright. His biography of Stella Gibbons was praised as "a triumph" by Hilary Spurling in the Daily Telegraph, his play Winner Takes All, was described as "the funniest evening in London", by Michael Billington in The Guardian, and his adaptation of Hennequin and Delacour's Once Bitten opened at the Orange Tree Theatre in London in December 2010. MINOS OR RHADAMANTHUS: The sun was sinking behind the cricket pavilion, extending its long shadows over the grass of what had once been called 'The Great Field'.

Reggie Oliver is a stage actor and playwright. His biography of Stella Gibbons was praised as "a triumph" by Hilary Spurling in the Daily Telegraph, his play Winner Takes All, was described as "the funniest evening in London", by Michael Billington in The Guardian, and his adaptation of Hennequin and Delacour's Once Bitten opened at the Orange Tree Theatre in London in December 2010. A PIECE OF ELSEWHERE: Staying with Auntie Winnie was going to be a treat. That was what I was told, but no valid reason for why it should be had been supplied.

Reggie Oliver is a stage actor and playwright. His biography of Stella Gibbons was praised as "a triumph" by Hilary Spurling in the Daily Telegraph, his play Winner Takes All, was described as "the funniest evening in London", by Michael Billington in The Guardian, and his adaptation of Hennequin and Delacour's Once Bitten opened at the Orange Tree Theatre in London in December 2010. MEETING WITH MIKE: It looked as if one of Mad King Ludwig's fantasy castles had developed middle age spread.