One Night with Joan – review
Leicester Square theatreCollins delivers a strong night of old-school gossip, shameless name-dropping and celebrity score-settling that will delight her fans
Full Alexis … One Night with Joan at Leicester Square theatre last year. Photograph: Tristram Kenton
Not many celebrities garner admiration from both camp connoisseurs and Ukip supporters, which makes an evening with Joan Collins potentially combustible from the outset. Fortunately, the audience is more gay couples and soap fans than far-right extremists, and Collins's autobiographical revue show wisely avoids the political.
It also avoids the personal to some extent, despite being about her life. Instead, we get rapid-fire edited highlights of a career that spiked massively with Dynasty and tailed off into B-movies and pantomime on either side. There's a bit of both to this show – directed by her husband, Percy Gibson (No 5, if you're counting). The threadbare set looks more am-dram I, Claudius than Alexis Carrington's boudoir, with a prop throne and a telephone on a side table that rings at strategic moments. ("And then Hollywood came calling!" Brrring brrring.) But Collins still musters the glitz, in bouffant wigs and sequinned sparkliness, as she reminds us how she's brushed shoulders with legends like Bette Davis, Joan Crawford, Frank Sinatra, Marilyn Monroe and Paul Newman.
The fact that she's no longer in those circles (she enthuses about her role in the upcoming series of Benidorm) makes her the perfect celebrity gossip, in a way. This is a night of shameless name-dropping and score-settling, and her anecdotes – augmented by slides and video clips, if not always punchlines – illustrate how she was desired by men, envied by women, mistreated by Hollywood, and deserving of at least the success she had, if not more.
Spontaneous it ain't, but showbiz trivia fans will be enlightened, and her catty, sometimes brittle showmanship is redeemed by self-mockery. "I was determined to play only serious roles," she says as clips from Cinzano ads and The Empire of the Ants play. Footage of her mid-1990s courtroom performance, though, channelling the full Alexis against her book publishers, is remarkable. Sceptical punters might not be swayed, but for her fans it's plenty enough. In fact, just being in the same room as her is enough.
- One Night with Joan
- by Joan Collins
- Leicester Square theatre,
- London
- WC2H 7BX
- Until 9 February 2014
- Box office:
08448 733433 - Venue website
It also avoids the personal to some extent, despite being about her life. Instead, we get rapid-fire edited highlights of a career that spiked massively with Dynasty and tailed off into B-movies and pantomime on either side. There's a bit of both to this show – directed by her husband, Percy Gibson (No 5, if you're counting). The threadbare set looks more am-dram I, Claudius than Alexis Carrington's boudoir, with a prop throne and a telephone on a side table that rings at strategic moments. ("And then Hollywood came calling!" Brrring brrring.) But Collins still musters the glitz, in bouffant wigs and sequinned sparkliness, as she reminds us how she's brushed shoulders with legends like Bette Davis, Joan Crawford, Frank Sinatra, Marilyn Monroe and Paul Newman.
The fact that she's no longer in those circles (she enthuses about her role in the upcoming series of Benidorm) makes her the perfect celebrity gossip, in a way. This is a night of shameless name-dropping and score-settling, and her anecdotes – augmented by slides and video clips, if not always punchlines – illustrate how she was desired by men, envied by women, mistreated by Hollywood, and deserving of at least the success she had, if not more.
Spontaneous it ain't, but showbiz trivia fans will be enlightened, and her catty, sometimes brittle showmanship is redeemed by self-mockery. "I was determined to play only serious roles," she says as clips from Cinzano ads and The Empire of the Ants play. Footage of her mid-1990s courtroom performance, though, channelling the full Alexis against her book publishers, is remarkable. Sceptical punters might not be swayed, but for her fans it's plenty enough. In fact, just being in the same room as her is enough.
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