The Crush Bar does Only Connect, comedy theatremaker Rosalie Minnitt, and three shows to see...
A theatre-themed quiz styled after the best show on television. Plus: the creator of Clementine at the Soho Theatre, and three shows to see.
Hello, and welcome to The Crush Bar, a weekly newsletter about theatre written by me, Fergus Morgan.
Below, you will something a bit different: a theatre-themed quiz, styled like an episode of Only Connect! Hopefully it is fun and challenging. I’m afraid I’m going to be a bit crafty, though: I’m going to send the answers out in a special issue on Monday, but only to people who are signed up as paid supporters of this newsletter. There’s more detail on all that below. Also in this issue: a chat with comedian and actor Rosalie Minnitt, whose solo show Clementine is at the Soho Theatre from Wednesday, and your regular recommendations for three shows to see.
Before all that, though, I want to make a request: if you enjoy reading this newsletter, or find it helpful or worthwhile at all, then perhaps you could consider becoming a paid supporter? The Crush Bar takes quite a bit of effort to put together every week. You can help keep it going - and help keep it free for everyone - by signing up as a supporter via the button below.
There are a couple of other ways you could help me out, too. One is by sharing The Crush Bar with anyone who might be interested in it, and encouraging them to subscribe. The other is by using it for promotional purposes. You can find out more info on how to do that here.
Okay. More from me at the bottom. Here comes the newsletter.
What is the best show on television? No, it’s not The Bear, or Succession, or The Last Of Us. It’s not even Masterchef: The Professionals. No. It’s Only Connect, on BBC Two on Mondays at 8pm.
Please, do not come at me with your Mastermind and your University Challenge. The Mastermind format is tired. University Challenge is for show-offs who have memorised the encyclopaedia, and it has an archaic qualification system that favours Oxbridge. It also has Amol Rajan. There is no debate. Only Connect has a winning mix of nice, modest people and quirkily styled questions that test both knowledge and lateral thinking. It is the purist’s choice of quiz show. It is the only choice of quiz show.
Anyway, I’ve written about some serious things in this newsletter over the last month, so I thought I would take a break from that this week and do something I have wanted to do for a while. That’s right: welcome to The Crush Bar does Only Connect.
Now, if you are one of those poor souls unfamiliar with the Only Connect format, then here is a quick explanation. There are four rounds: Connections, where you have to work out what connects four different items; Sequences, when you have to work out what would come fourth in a sequence of four items; The Wall, where you have to find four groups of four on an interactive grid of sixteen items; and the Missing Vowels round, AKA the moron’s round, where you just have to identify a name/word/phrase that has had all its vowels removed. Got all that? Don’t worry. It is pretty simple.
Only Connect fans: I know this is not going to work quite like the show. There is no timer, and I could not figure out a way of showing you items one by one. I have found a brilliant website, though, which lets you play an interactive version of The Wall. Beware: I have lost hours of my life to PuzzGrid.com over the last month.
Okay, we are nearly ready. One last thing: answers. I’m afraid I am going to be a bit of a bastard here. For the first time in the history of The Crush Bar, something is going behind a paywall. You want the answers? Well, you have to become a paid supporter of The Crush Bar. I will give you the weekend to think about the questions and sign up, then on Monday I will send out an email to all paid supporters with the answers in. Sorry. Sneaky, I know. You can sign up as a supporter using the button below.
“Only connect! That was the whole of her sermon. Only connect the prose and the passion, and both will be exalted, and human love will be seen at its height. Live in fragments no longer…”
E. M. Forster
Round One: Connections
What connects the following?
Man; Saint; Major; Heartbreak
Old; Young; New; Bristol Old
West Yorkshire Playhouse; Her Majesty’s Theatre; Queen’s Theatre; Tricycle Theatre
@ Surgeon’s Hall; Triplex; on Niddry St; on The Mile
Rhys Ifans; Andrew Lincoln; Stephen Mangan; Owen Teale
These pictures:
Round Two: Sequences
What would come fourth in these sequences?
Soliloquy; This Was A Real Nice Clambake; What’s The Use Of Wond’rin, ______
Come From Away; Dear Evan Hansen; Back To The Future: The Musical, ______
Cyrano De Bergerac with James McAvoy; The Seagull with Emilia Clarke; The Effect with Taylor Russell and Paapa Essiedu; ______
Royal Shakespeare Company and £15m; National Theatre and £16m; Southbank Centre and £17m; ______
Sonia Friedman (4); Nica Burns (3); Mark Cornell, Michael Lynas and Adam Speers (2); ______
These pictures:
Round Three: The Wall
Okay, I have done two of these for you. They are screenshotted below, but I have also linked to the interactive online versions HERE and HERE, if you want to play around with them instead on PuzzGrid.com.
Wall 1
Wall 2
Round Four: Missing Vowels
I have removed the vowels from these words, names or phrases. What are the complete answers.
Category 1: Stephen Sondheim Musicals
Ssssns; Sndynthprkwthgrg; Flls; Cmpny; fnnythnghppndnthwytthfrm
Category 2: Caryl Churchill Plays
Tpgrls; nmbr; srsmny; glsskllblbrdmp; scpdln
Category 3: theatre critics and their publication/outlet
Rfkbrndthgrdn; nckcrtsndthvnngstndrd; clvdvsndthtms; ndrzjlkwskndtmt; lyngrdnrndstgdr
Category 4: artistic directors and their organisations
Rfsnrrsndthntnlthtr; dnlvnsndtmrhrvyndthrylshksprcmpny; rprtgldndthlmdthtr; Nnndthmnchstrrylxchng; mchlltrryndshksprsglb
End of Quiz
That is that. Hope you enjoyed it. How did you get on? Let me know by replying to this email, or in the comments section below if you are reading this online or in the app. Remember, don’t put any spoilers where other readers can see them, though1
One last reminder: If you want to get next week’s newsletter with answers in, then you have until Monday to sign up as a paid supporter, which you can do via the button below. And, okay, if you really, really want them and don’t want to sign up, then just reply to this email saying so, and I’ll send them over to you anyway.
For the last two years, comedy performer Rosalie Minnitt has shared her life with another woman: Lady Clementine, a 26-year-old, “Regency-ish” era aristocrat who is catastrophically unlucky in love.
“Clementine started out as a lockdown hallucination,” Minnitt explains. “Like a lot of artists, I lost a lot of confidence during the pandemic, so Clementine became this vehicle for me to get back on stage. After lockdown, I did a pub performance for my friends. It could have been a disaster, but it wasn’t. I’ve kind of been doing it ever since. The whole thing has been a massive learning process.”
Lady Clementine’s first appearances came in 2022 in one-off shows at the Hen and Chickens Theatre, two dates at Brighton Fringe, and ten at the Edinburgh Fringe. In 2023, she has visited VAULT Festival, Brighton again, and Edinburgh again, this time for the entire month. Minnitt’s perseverance has paid off: on Wednesday, Clementine will start a two-week stay at the Soho Theatre.
“I’ve just not let it go, like a dog with a bone,” Minnitt says. “It’s been a lot of hard work. I self-produce and work full-time, putting as much money as I can into the show. Balancing all those things and still being creative has been tough. My social life has been put on hold for months. I’ve just had this sense that there is something in this, that this is something I need to give everything to. I think you have to be like that, though. You have to be delusional. You have to not be on planet Earth.”
The show itself follows Lady Clementine on an outrageous odyssey in search of love through a “non-specific posh time.” It is, Minnitt continues, “a big piss-take of both shows like Bridgerton and modern standards of dating, and the way things have not really changed that much.” TimeOut’s Fiona McDonald called it “a hilariously refreshing take” on period drama. Chortle’s Jay Richardson called it a “painstakingly crafted and brilliantly performed” parody of “Austen, Bronte et al.”
Much of it is inspired by Minnitt’s own comedy upbringing: born in 1997 to a Belgian mum and a Mancunian dad, she travelled around a lot as a child, spending time in both the Netherlands and Slovakia. Her introduction to British culture – and British comedy – came through television. “My dad was really keen on classic stuff like Monty Python and Fawlty Towers,” she says. “I also watched a lot of American sitcoms like The Office and Parks and Rec. I was obsessed with reality TV, too.”
Minnitt went on to study History at Durham University, where she joined comedy troupe The Durham Revue, and realised that she wanted to pursue comedy performance professionally. Since graduating, she has “muddled through.” Now, Minnitt lives in London. By day, she works in children’s television, writing scripts for BBC Live Lessons. By night, she becomes Lady Clementine.
“I got an agent this year, which is great, but they asked me what I wanted to do, and I did not know what to say because I hadn’t really thought about it,” Minnitt says, when asked what comes next. “My favourite thing is what I’m doing now: comedy storytelling. I love stand-up but it is definitely not me, and I find serious theatre a bit tough. I think I’d like to occupy the space in between.”
And what about Lady Clementine? What is next for her? “I am thinking about what else I can do with her,” Minnitt says. “I wonder whether there is a radio series or something in there. The world she lives in is the gift that keeps on giving, too. I think I can write another show with another character from the same universe. That is the beauty of it, I suppose. There are no rules.”
Clementine is at the Soho Theatre from November 15 until November 29. For more information and tickets, click here.
Three shows to see next week
Passing - Park Theatre, until November 28
This new play by Dan Sareen takes on the trickiness of growing up between two cultures, following a British-Indian woman as she persuades her family to celebrate Diwali for the first time. Directed by Imy Wyatt Corner - a former interviewee of this newsletter - and produced by Want The Moon Theatre Company, which was founded by Sareen and fellow University of Leeds students, Passing runs at Finsbury Park’s Park Theatre all month. The Stage’s Anya Ryan called it “a big play, bursting at the seams with big emotions” that tackles the “messy, complex reality” of being mixed-race with authenticity. You can get tickets via the button below.
Machinal - Theatre Royal, Bath, until November 18
American playwright Sophie Treadwell’s classic 1928 play was inspired by the real-life case of Ruth Snyder, a New York woman who was convicted of murdering her husband and executed by electric chair in Sing Sing Prison, her death recorded in a surreptitiously taken photograph that was later widely publicised. It is staged fairly regularly - it was at the Almeida Theatre in 2018 - but Richard Jones’ current production in Bath is clearly something special. In his five-star review for The Stage, critic Dave Fargnoli called it a “sensitive, shattering production” featuring a “ferocious” performance from Rosie Sheehy. You can get tickets via the button below.
Ghosts - Shakespeare’s Globe, until January 28
Joe Hill-Gibbins is the daring director that staged Measure For Measure on a sea of sex dolls, A Midsummer Night’s Dream in a mud bath, and Richard II on fast-forward. Now, he has teamed up with designer Rosanna Vize - a former interviewee of this newsletter - to stage the first ever Ibsen at Shakespeare’s Globe. Ghosts runs in the candle-lit Sam Wanamaker Playhouse until late January. It is a thrilling prospect, and you can get tickets via the button below.
Thanks for reading
That is it for this week. If you want to get in touch about anything raised in this issue - or anything at all, really - just reply to this newsletter or email me at fergusmorgan@hotmail.co.uk. Or you can find me on Twitter/X, where I am @FergusMorgan.
A quick reminder of the ways you can support The Crush Bar. You can share it. You can use it for promotional purposes. And you can support it. There are currently 2289 subscribers, 24 of whom are supporters. If you would like to join them, you can do so via the button below.
See you next Friday.
Fergus
Love - and often baffled by Only Connect - and impressed by your collab? mash-up? Will have a go later. Already tantalised by a couple of questions I’ve had a look at. Subscribed not so long ago after dipping in regularly - for all your theatre insight and goss - thrilled it means I’ll have access to all the answers later …