(Photo courtesy of http://www.zachbraff.com/)
So this morning on BBC Breakfast Zach Braff, of Scrubs fame, appeared to promote his latest venture a play in the West End. The play is titled 'All New People' and was written by Braff himself. It opens in London on the 22nd of February at the Duke of Yorks Theatre in St Martins Lane.
The play was developed by the Off Broadway Theatre Company 2ST aka Second Stage Company a company that began in the late 70's giving plays that may not have been successful the first time around a second chance on a New York stage. Braff returned to the stage in 2010 after 8 years away in the play Trust by Paul Weitz and it was this link and this company that inspired him to write his own work. He did not appear in the New York version but agreed to play the lead role in a transfer from America to the West End saying that it was a dream of his to perform in London. Zach Braff is well known for being the zany J.D in TV's Scrubs but is also an acclaimed film writer whose 2004 directorial debut Garden State was an Indie Film hit both financially and critically. He has moved away from Scrubs slightly in the past few years becoming more of a guest character and has been working towards more film directing and writing as evidenced by his latest project 'Open Heart' a remake of a Danish thriller and an original film written by himself called 'Swingles'.
The fact is Braff is a very talented actor, he is perhaps the best actor around today at juggling comedy and pathos equally. His play is centred around a depressed young man and is a comedy so he is in a perfect position he cannot really lose. Is Braff playing to type? Yes. Is that a bad thing? No. I always feel if someone is good at one genre and people are willing to pay to watch them do that one thing then by all means do it. Braff is taking the opportunity to tour his play internationally and to perform in it himself, not many American television stars or directors would take such a risk. The good thing is this play thanks to Braff has a built in audience due to the success and popularity in this country of Scrubs especially with the teenagers who watch E4. Scrubs has taken over the position in this country enjoyed by Friends for over 10 years and has become the teenage sitcom so this show will definitely shift some tickets. Normally I would rag on American actors coming over here to perform in a play as a gimmick but this time I think that would be unfair, it is a new piece of work which was well received in New York and with its sitcom style jokes and layout I think this will be an unchallenging piece of theatre that could engage young adults and teenagers without having to be a Musical. If only there were more shows like this for younger people to see, the point is sometimes we want to see something we're familiar with and currently the British young person is at a point where the American sitcom is a very accessible form of media and they understand it incredibly well. The old fashioned hard hitting drama isn't pulling in a massive amount of punters to the theatre so why not try the sitcom route, why not try writing a sitcom play for a change set here in the UK. This show could be incredibly popular and I am wishing I had tickets to see the performance just to see how the sitcom style works in a live theatre environment. Zach Braff will be good I am certain of it and he seems very enthusiastic about the entire enterprise and as the show will be hitting Glasgow and Manchester first it really seems as if its not about the money for this Hollywood star. If you liked 'Garden State' and 'Scrubs' I reckon you can't really go wrong buying tickets for this show.
For ticket information for the Glasgow and Manchester runs please click on the relevent cities name.
For ticket information regarding the West End run please click here.
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