Brighton Beach Memoirs
Produced by The National Theatre Company in the Lyttleton Theatre, opened Febuary 25, 1986(!)
Cast List:
Eugene Jerome - Steven Mackintosh
Blanche Norton - Alison Fiske
Kate Jerome - Frances de la Tour
Laurie Morton - Belinda Buckley
Nora Morton - Lisa Jacobs <-- Now Mrs Mackintosh
Stanley Jerome - Robert Glenister
Jack Jerome - Harry Towb
Reviews
Sunday Express
"Neil Simon's autobiographical Brighton Beach Memoirs is a bit like 
the Waltons gone urban Jewish ... but with Simon's wit ever quick
to cut through mawkish moments.

In dingy Brooklyn house in 1937, a poor immigrant Jewish family's 
struggles to make ends meet and resolve it's seven members clashing
emotional needs, is seen through the eyes of the adolescent son who
wants to become a writer. That is, when he is not trying to snatch an
undertable look at he thighs of his pretty cousin (Lisa Jacobs).

Very fine and wry is Steven Mackintosh as this lad, Eugene, who keeps 
turning to prepare us for the tense domestic battle with come-on remarks:
"Chapter Seven, the Infamous Dinner Scene".

Francis De La Tour, a spectacle of aproned drudgery as Eugene's mother,
rules the household with a querullous tyranny that hides a just reach-
able heart, and is moving when years of repressed resentment over her
lazy, live-in, widowed sister suddenly boils over.

Harry Towb personifies the resignation of a father "born middle-aged", 
and Lisa Jacobs a spark of a teenager who would rather go to an audition
than to school.

They may all be nobodies, but never non-entities - highly individual 
characters  who have standards and ambitions and, in the end, respect 
for each other. They offer lively, and thoughtful entertainment. Great
family stuff."



The Observer
"... Young Eugene Jerome is our narrator. He is likeable enough
and well played by Steven Mackintosh as a volitile and adolescent 
Steptoe, but with hi slonging to become a writer and pitch for the 
Yankees, his fears that he is not his parent's child, his indignant
wet dreams and hindsight sense of childhood's sudden end, he is both 
an over-familiar figure in American literature and too cute for the 
play's good. ..."



Punch
"...In his own memory of himself at fifteen, Simon has come up with a 
touching and marvellous narrator, a coherent American Adrian Mole, whose 
diary is a mixture of random guilt and delighted sexual awakening.
Whether lusting after his own cousin, worrying that the forthcoming
war in Europe will be blamed on him, or merely ritually fending off his 
mother's increasingly bizarre complaints about him ("Stop that yelling,
I have a cake in the oven!"), Steven Mackintosh as the young Simon is 
a constant delight. ..."



Gaurdian
"...Steven Mackintosh cannot quite disguise an element of self-delight
in the portrayal of the sex-haunted teenage hero: ..."



Spectator
"...this alone would have hardly made palatable Eugene's mixure of 
innoscence and self-consciousness. What stops him from being to clever
by half is the faultlessly natural acting of the young actor Steven
Mackintosh, whose presence on stage is an impressive combination of
the discreet and the commanding. ..."




London Standard
"...Steven Mackintosh is endearing as an owlish adolescent who cannot 
make up his mind whether a naked girl or an icecream is a more pleasing
prospect. ..."



Daily Mail
"...Of course the weight of the play falls on the young shoulders of
Steven Mackintosh, whose audience-arresting narration manages endearingly
to combine baffled innocence with wordly wit. A genuine find. ..."



Jewish Chronicle
"...The narator, an American Adrian Mole, is Eugene Jerome, a 15 year old
observer od the family scene, torn between becoming a baseball player
and a writer, though he'd give up either future for a glimpse of naked
girl now. It is a role seized on by Steven Mackintosh as avidly as a 
boy among biscuits. ..."



The Listener
"...There is, too, an unalloyed triumph among the performance. Steven 
Mackintosh plays Eugene with a beguiling combination of composure, 
energy and the comic timing of a master. What's more, he never talks 
through laughter - unlike half the actors in London. ..."



Daily Telegraph
"...Played by 17 year old Steven Mackintosh with flinging exuberance as 
American as his awful knickerbockers, Eugene is genuinely funny and
touching creation. ..."
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Production transferred to the Aldwych Theatre, December 3 1986
Cast List:
Eugene Gerome - Steven Mackintosh
Blanche jerome - Dorothy Tutin
Kate Jerome - Susan Engel
(the rest of the cast is the same as previous)
More Reviews
London Evening Standard
"...Steven Mackintosh is delightful as the owlish Eugene, astonished
by the intricacies of sex, but ready to forget it for an icecream. ..."



Daily Telegraph
"...and all the acting is worth seeing, especially Steven Mackintosh
as the button-holing, Adrian Mol-ish, wide-eyed, wet-dreaming chorus 
to the cosy fun. ..."



Financial Times
"...The show belongs to Steven Mackintosh's skinny and bespectacled 
Eugene. Owlishly observant, exuberant, wounded, wisecracking, he thrusts 
and parries at each surprise sprung on him by life. ..."



Jewish Chronicle
"...Stevenn Mackintosh continues as Eugene, and he is brilliant. But 
his is never a Jewish teenager. ..."



City Limits
"...Shmaltz it may be but Steven Mackintosh is terrific as Simon's 
youthful alter-ego, all lustful yearnings and Jack Nicholson sound-
alike drawling vowels. ..."



Sunday Telegraph
"...I must record that a number of friends have described both the play
and production as "magical" to me. Certainly it contains some remarkable
performances from Steven Mackintosh as a strident but wholly-likeable 
Eugene,..."



Sunday Express
"...As the adolescent Eugene, Steven Mackintosh is almost as good as 
Mathew Broderick who created the role on Broadway. And that's saying 
something. ..."



Time Out
"...Steven Mackintosh gives an astonishingly assured performance as 
Eugene suffering all the self-conscious horrors of adolescence while 
driven wild by the proximity of his pubescent cousin. ..."



Daily Mail
"It was a glorious night for everyone. A play so warm and inviting that
you could happily drown it. A cast so subtle and sure, they could have 
sold you shares for the Kowloon Bridge for tickets for the Titanic as 
a bonus.

But for one young man it wsa the night that his ship came in, and 
everyone at the Aldwych knew it except him. As teenager Steven Mackintosh
stepped forward to take his curtain call with fellow actor Robert
Glenister, the applause crescendoed to a roar and stopped him dead in 
his tracks, blinking in astonishment and smiling in disbelief into its 
welcome.

The seasoned stars on stage with him, Dorothy Tutin, Harry Towb and 
Susan Engel knew the message and beamed their approval. Young Mr.
Mackintosh had arrived in the West End. 

Arrived there moreover, thanks entirely to the National Theatre and
director Michael Rudman's lovingly detailed production of Neil Simon's
majestically autobigraphical American family saga.

It falls to Mr Mackintosh to carry the turbulant events of Simon's
harrassed over- crowded Jewish family in his skinny shoulders. And he
misses not a trick. He it is who narrates the evening's events as seen 
through the adolescent's unfailing capacity for self dramatisation, a 
quality that runs like Red Rum through the Jerome houshold.

Since we first acclaimed this piece on the South Bank, Miss Tutin and 
Miss Engel have joined the cast to add their own distinction.

But West End belonged to the slightly built, gawky and endearing 
Steven Mackintosh."