Bam, thwack, kapow: Broadway’s Spider-Man is in trouble again. Having successfully seen off its original nemesis, the New York State Department of Labour’s health and safety checks, Spidey has now been snared by a pincer movement from enemies from within its own ranks. Within the last week news has broken of not one, but two legal challenges filed against the stage musical’s producers – the first by an investor in the production and the second by Julie Taymor, its original director Photograph: Mario Tama/Getty Images
Back in the West End, theatres are bracing themselves for attack from elsewhere. The Olympics may claim to encourage international harmony and peace, but it looks like it isn’t good for business if you’re a theatre owner. Andrew Lloyd Webber has mooted the idea that he might close some of his London theatres during the Olympics, while travel agents are warning of a 90% slump in leisure bookings, as non-Olympic tourists stay away in droves. Meanwhile, more positive Olympic performing arts plans were unveiled with the lineup for the London 2012 festival Photograph: Andy Rain/EPA
But, if thronging crowds of tourists and transport delays put you off an actual trip to the theatre next summer, you can still enjoy a virtual theatrical experience thanks to a game launched this week by the Royal Opera House. In The Show Must Go On, which is available on iPhone and iPad, you can stage your own opera productions including Carmen and The Marriage of Figaro. And it wasn’t the only example of the performing arts embracing into the digital sphere this week, with the launch of Taste Theatre, a new ticket-selling website set up by 12 of London’s top subsidised producing theatres Photograph: PR
Work from many of those London theatres was among the nominees on the Evening Standard theatre award’s shortlist. Yet again, subsidised venues in the capital fared well, with the Royal Court and the National Theatre enjoying particularly good years. The commercial West End fared rather less well, with the entirety of the sector clocking up three nominations (compared to, say, the National’s nine nods). There were also some surprise omissions elsewhere, most notably in the best actor category, with both Kevin Spacey (for Richard III) and James Corden (for One Man, Two Guvnors) missing out
Photograph: Oli Scarff/Getty Images
Andrew Lloyd Webber has been giving out awards of a different kind. The composer’s charitable foundation has this week handed over a cheque for a whopping £3.5m to Arts Educational Schools, to finance a planned refurbishment of its London home. The money will allow the school to improve its main student theatre, as well as improve disabled access and rehearsal facilities. ArtsEd was where Lloyd Webber chose to place Danielle Hope for a term of intensive training after she won the BBC’s Over the Rainbow talent show
Photograph: Ethan Miller/Getty Images North America
Auntie’s other toe-tapping talent contest, Strictly Come Dancing, has been responsible for getting amateurs on to dance floors across the UK, according to research released this week. According to a survey conducted by YouGov, one in five British adults currently takes part in some form of dance, with roughly the same percentage saying they had been shaking their tail feathers even more because TV dance shows had piqued their interest. One in eight has taken a dance class in the last five years, while respondents cited Fred Astaire and Michael Jackson as their favourite hoofers
Photograph: Guy Levy/BBC/PA
One of the nation’s other favourites – Sooty – is getting busy in the West End this Christmas, for the first time since 1998, with a daytime run at the West End’s Garrick theatre from 19 December, where the puppet is staging a special festive show. Sooty will, of course, be joined by Sweep and Soo and the show will (slightly bizarrely) be doubling up with an evening performance of Chicago at the same venue. The long-running prohibition-era musical has just transferred to the venue, with Ugly Betty star America Ferrera (above, left) as Roxy Hart
Photograph: Dave M. Benett/Getty Images
