West End & Broadway

It's not often that you get to follow the daily musings of a leading theatre critic, especially the chief reviewer of The New York Times, whose verdicts on the London season have an inevitable influence on theatrical booking patterns in a Manhattan already in thrall to the UK. That's just one reason why the ongoing London Theatre Journal of The New York Times's Ben Brantley has become essential blogosphere reading for theatre buffs - not to mention industry professionals - over the past 10 days or so.
It's long been one of the perks of the job that the paper's number one drama critic gets a trip or two to London every season; that's the context, in fact, in which I first met such predecessors of Brantley as Frank Rich and the late, much-missed Vincent Canby. But with the arrival of the blog, Brantley is now able to report back virtually instantaneously, while still saving longer, more sustained theme pieces for the print edition of the paper. (Those, too, are of course available online.)The fact is, although Brantley has so far weighed in with one longer print essay driven by his response to the National Theatre's revival of The Hothouse, his ongoing ArtsBeat blog means that we already know some of his thoughts about Saint Joan and In Celebration (both of which he liked), and Gaslight at the Old Vic (which he didn't, much). We also hear about food poisoning precluding Brantley's visit to Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat - a blessing in disguise, many might argue - and get an ace description of Elaine Paige in London's Drowsy Chaperone: "In a dark wig and tarantula eyelashes, [she] resembles a plush toy version of Joan Collins," Brantley writes.So far so fun you might argue, but why pay special heed? That's an easy one: because Britain more than ever is relied upon to fuel a New York theatre scene that, in the absence of thinking for itself, likes to import whatever has received the cultural imprimatur of the town's most influential critic.
It's near-miraculous that the Broadway season to come already promises new plays by American dramatists Aaron Sorkin (The Farnsworth Invention, starring Hank Azaria) and David Mamet (November, starring Nathan Lane), since the big guns in years gone by have been Tom Stoppard, Alan Bennett, and David Hare. It will come as no surprise, meanwhile, to point out that Stoppard's Rock 'n' Roll itself surfaces on Broadway in the autumn, much of its London cast intact - this is the same play (and production) that was exalted by Brantley during his sweep through London, minus a blog, this time last year.