Sam Crane and Tara Fitzgerald in And Then There Were None. Fitzgerald has withdrawn from the Comedy theatre's Pinter double bill. Photograph: Tristram Kenton
Is there a doctor in the house? That's increasingly the question being asked on stage and off. Productions are making headlines for rather unusual reasons - namely, the illness of one star or another leading to a dramatically delayed opening or, in one prominent case, to their substitution altogether. Just this week the opening of the Old Vic's Cinderella was postponed by four days due to an ailing co-star in Sandi Toksvig. This was followed by the rather more significant report that Tara Fitzgerald will be replaced by Gina McKee in the forthcoming Comedy theatre double bill of Harold Pinter's The Lover and The Collection.
Fitzgerald has apparently succumbed to "a serious bronchial infection" laying low an actress last seen on stage in London in the flop West End version of And Then There Were None. With previews not starting until January 15 2008 in advance of an opening two weeks later, producers were at least able to realign the component parts of a revival that has additional star wattage in Timothy West, Richard Coyle, and Stardust's Charlie Cox. Fitzgerald, luckily for investors, isn't the show's lone draw.
If illness strikes at a different moment in the life of a production, the effects can be felt immediately. Facing bronchial problems of his own, Douglas Hodge has so far not gone on in the Menier Chocolate Factory revival of La Cage Aux Folles, allowing understudy Spencer Stafford his extended moment in the spotlight and leading to the postponement twice-over of press night, which will now take place on January 9. (The opening had originally been intended for December 3.) That Stafford will have done several weeks' duty in a notably demanding role with minimal press attention is nothing compared to the King Lear scenario in Stratford earlier this year, when Frances Barber's understudy, Melanie Jessop, spent well over a month performing Goneril and also Arkadina in The Seagull in repertory without ever reaping the benefit of a professional review. (Barber, for her part, got decidedly mixed reviews in both plays.)
Sure, people get sick, but all at once? And heaven forfend if your star happens to be the show, especially when you may not have the stamina to strut your stuff eight times a week. The Broadway musical The Color Purple regularly made headlines when its original Tony-winning lead, LaChanze, was out of the show, it seemed, with undue regularity (including, by the way, the night I caught it in the immediate run-up to that year's Tony awards). Her replacement, an American Idol instant celebrity who goes by the disarming name of Fantasia, in fact got far better reviews but seems to have an even worse attendance record, if a recent article in the New York Post is any guide.
At least La Cage Aux Folles - as far as one knows - hasn't been playing to coachloads of Doug Hodge obsessives who have gone into emotional freefall upon discovering that their idol is absent from the performance. On the other hand, given the busily coughing and rheumy audience amongst whom I sat two Saturdays ago at ENO's Turn of the Screw, ill health seems to be the seasonal norm both sides of the footlights. Face masks for Christmas, anyone?
