By Ray Bennett
LONDON – At the Royal Court Theatre in April 2004, a tiny, waif-like creature strolls silently onto a wide, spare stage with the audience still settling and chattering and then suddenly becoming quiet.
There is a window to the rear of what is a painter’s gallery and the young woman stares from it for a long time. She comes to the front where her brilliant television eyes make us think we know this person. But any thought of Dana Scully from ‘The X-Files’ evaporates quickly as Gillian Anderson presents us with another Dana, an artist whose tousled, tied-up hair draws back from a face filled with the misery of failure. Continue reading
How ‘Oz’ made Judy Garland a legend
By Ray Bennett
LONDON – Judy Garland was born 100 years ago today and died more than half a century ago but her legend lives on. Mostly, that is thanks to the enduring popularity of ‘The Wizard of Oz’ and the song ‘Over the Rainbow’. If things had gone differently, Shirley Temple would have played Dorothy and even as it was, the picture was not a success when it first came out. Continue reading →