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Did James Corden delay a West End show to watch football? | The truth behind the theatre drama
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Mickey Jo
Do you know, genuinely, it may be that this is one of the last things I expected to be talking about while I'm here in New York seeing plays and musicals. Spoiler alert, by the way. And yet, for some reason, what is absolutely a non story has turned into a huge online controversy within the theatre community. A controversy in a storm that arguably I'm contributing to by furthering this conversation. But there are things that are not being said which, as you know, frustrates me. So begrudgingly, we're gonna talk about it. The question of the day is why did James Corden single handedly delay the start of the play that he is appearing in in the West End so that he could watch football? And why is everyone outraged about it? Spoiler alert. He didn't. But we're gonna get to that. Oh my God. Hey, if you're meeting me for the first time, my name is Mickey Jo. I am obsessed with all things theatre. I am a professional theatre critic, content creator and pundit here on social media. You can find more of my theatrical opinions over on Instagram, TikTok and the app formerly known as Twitter, where most of this nonsense has been taking place. Right now, like I said, I'm in New York seeing as many shows as possible, tuned for those reviews and those vlogs. I'm very excited to share them with you. But back home in London, James Corden, who of course is now well known for Gavin and Stacey for his US talk show, who has returned to the uk, is returning to his theatrical roots. He was seen on stage towards the beginning of his career in the History Boys and in One Man, Two Governors, a real huge star turn from him, but previously to that in the original West End cast of Martin Gare. Fun fact. In any case, he's back on stage at the Old Vic in a new play called the Constituent, which I went to the press light of a few weeks ago and I reviewed over on Instagram and TikTok, if you want to know what I thought about it. To give you a brief summary of my thoughts on the play here, if you are curious. I thought he was really pretty good in it. It catered very well to the kind of hysterical thing that we've seen him do before in the History Boys in Gavin and Stacy. But it allowed him to mine the part for a little bit more depth than we've perhaps seen him portray for a while on stage at least. And he got to portray a decent amount of darkness. It wasn't like a massive vehicle for him. It felt like a Very cautious stage that was very much within his capabilities. And for the most part, the opening and the press campaign leading up to it has been fairly undramatic. You know, they haven't been making huge noise about James Corden starring in a show in the West End, not like Tom Holland over at the Duke of York's doing Romeo and Juliet. And with his star power, you have to assume he has a certain ability to write his own ticket theatrically. And it feels as though they've made a very deliberate choice with this vehicle to, like, not make too much noise about it. A very cautious stage return. Unfortunately, that's all been a little bit blown out of proportion by this recent news. So right now, while the constituent is running in London as part of a very exciting summer of theatre, the Euros are also happening. This is the European Football Championships, I think. I like. I don't know things about football, as you will find out in today's video. I know many, many things about theatre. I do not know things about football. Oh, there you go. The UEFA European Championship. And this happened on Saturday. England was playing Switzerland and advanced on penalties. So the first thing that happened here is no one necessarily anticipated England getting this far in the championship. The next thing that happened is no one anticipated this match running as long into the evening as it did. Because they play the full duration, they then play for extra time. Theatre people think of this as an encore at the end of the show. Maybe it's a gala night or an anniversary performance and there's a little bit extra. Then they play for penalties. I really don't have a theatrical metaphor for this, but you're clever people. Someone can think of one in the comments. All of which was looming just past 7:30 when this play was set to begin. Now, the way that this has been reported is with headlines suggesting the idea of James Corden personally delaying the start of the play so that he could watch the end of the football. And people are taking that half truth, like less than half truth and running with it and painting a vivid picture in their minds of entitled, arrogant James Corden sat backstage in his dressing room being a diva, refusing to go on stage because he's watching the end of a football match while the audience exhaustedly wait for hours. And so many parts of that are completely untrue. But that's how people are portraying this situation and reacting to that version of it in their heads, which did not happen. For one thing, the performance was delayed by less than 15 minutes. For another, I can guarantee you that James Corden did not make this decision personally, because he does not have the authority to make this decision personally. This would have come from the stage manager, the house manager. Other people would have been party to this decision. For a third thing, he wasn't backstage. He went out and watched it with the audience. Because the whole thing was prompted by the realization that, you know, they were in the wings, they were ready to start the play, because they both start on stage at the beginning. James Corden and Anna Maxwell Martin, who are two of the three performers in this play, they were ready to go out and start, but they could hear the audience reacting to the ongoing and about to finish game because many of them were watching it on their phones and weren't about to stop watching it on their phones. Regardless of what happened, even if the play started, they were going to keep watching. We'll talk about that in just a moment because it's worth talking about. And so the decision was made, again, not by James Corden alone. I can guarantee you that all three actors would go out on stage and watch along with the audience. And that's what happened for a few minutes while the game finished and then the performance began. So James Corden was out front watching this along with other members of the audience and the other two cast members of the play. I'm just looking at the way that this has actually been reported, and they're saying things like, james Corden delays beginning of West End play to watch England football match with audience. And I don't know if this was intended by some to be like a fun, sweet community theater story. I dare say there are a lot of outlets that kind of with this being James Corden could smell the outrage. And they're like, there's a story here that people are going to share and click on. And it's kind of like rage baiting. And I want to talk a little bit about the concept of clickbait headlines, because I am no stranger to it here on YouTube, especially when uncovering something like this that everyone has perceived to be a certain thing. I think sometimes you have to play into that narrative and be like, isn't this shocking? And then people click on it and I'm like, actually, no, it's not. Whereas if I was to just say this is a non story, then it doesn't seem interesting, Right? So there's every possibility that I've called this video and put a thumbnail up something similarly clickbaity and controversial being like, oh my God, shocking. Why did James Corden do this? And then you open it to Find out he didn't. At the end of the day, as journalism lies dying, this is something that journalists and editors are doing more and more just to make things engaging. So Cordon actually spoke to the Guardian about this and I'm reading from that article he here, it says the constituent's three strong cast, James Corden, Anna Maxwell Martin and Zachary Hart, had been watching the match on a rigged up screen in the theatre's rehearsal room. Corden said when it got to extra time, we put on our costumes. The extra time finished about three minutes before the play was due to begin. We thought, oh man, this is tough, but we've got to start. They were going to do the play. Then we heard a yes from the audience and we looked at each other and said, they're all watching it. We looked out and there were loads of little lit up phones in the audience. It wasn't the time to start a serious play about serious issues. The whole thing is sort of offers political commentary and talks about kind of the threat to MPs by being public facing and by trying to positively engage with their constituents in their constituency and kind of builds on the idea of actual terrible things that have happened to MPs in the recent past. So there is a very serious element to this play. It's also darkly comic at times. Anyway, he said it wasn't the time to start a serious play about serious issues. So me and Anna and Zach went out on stage with an iPad and were commentating on the shootout. It was really wonderful, alive, a glorious collective experience. One of my favourite moments that I've ever had, really. The 90 minute play, a political drama about a clash between a female MP and an angry constituent played by James Corden, started about 10 minutes late. Worth noting some other points from the article here as well. Corden, a West Ham fan, fantastic, said he had missed a lot of Euro's matches because of the play. On Wednesday, England's semi final against the Netherlands kicks off at 8pm, half an hour after curtain up at the Old Vic. And he said, we'll catch the end of the match and that England reaching the semi finals was an unbelievable achievement. Thrilled for them. And there are also some quotes from a couple who had been watching on the way to the theatre who were really reluctant to stop watching. And Jack said to Rachel, do you think I could put the phone down between my legs to watch the penalties without disturbing other people? He also said Corden played it very well. He was quite charming and he engaged the audience. There were lots of cheers and applause so the way it reads from that is quite different to the version of events that people have been commenting on, because I think people jumped to a conclusion here. And maybe that's based on, you know, the slightly misleading headlines where they're just saying, james Corden delays the start of West End show. But there's also the other element of most of these headlines where they're illuminating that he watched it with the audience. I do think for a lot of these editors that they were trying to portray a positive story and they didn't realize people were going to get so mad about it. The other thing I think we need to clarify is that they're going to be missing the start of a match for a performance on Wednesday that they have no intention of disrupting or delaying. They're just going to do the play. You know, they were planning to do the play. It became apparent that that wasn't going to be possible because people were watching it on their phones. Now, like any debate, there are two sides to this and there is nuance to this, which is what I like to do on here. We like to talk through the whole thing. So let's consider the possibility that this was not a great move and not a great idea and let's consider all of the different parts of that. So first of all, and though it's not that deep, I do think it's objectively wrong that people were going to the theatre and weren't prepared to stop watching the match on their phones. I get it has enormous significance for people and no one had necessarily anticipated the match running that long or England being in the match that day when they'd booked these tickets, however far in advance. At the same time, if you are making the decision to go to the theatre, that is what you are going to be doing, like whatever is going on in the world. A few days before this happened, I was seeing a 100 minute musical while the UK election results were beginning to come in. That happened because I was in a different time zone, if you're wondering how that works. And I was desperately wanting to see those first few results coming through, but I couldn't because I was seeing a show. What do I think those audience members ought to have done in this situation? Well, they have choices. You know, you can just skip the theater for that evening. It doesn't have an interval. This particular play, it's 90 minutes long, so you don't get to like weigh, oh, do I just go in for the second act? There would have been a late comer point. But if we're talking about an awful lot of people and a show that has on stage seating that would have been particularly challenging. So I think, you know, it was probably for the best that they made this decision. But ultimately, audience members, if you're going to the theatre, you have to choose to be at the theatre, extraordinary circumstances notwithstanding. And I don't think that England in a non final Euros match is really extraordinary circumstances. But then I am not a football person, which leads me on to the next gripe that people, theatre people specifically have had with this. It's the idea that not everyone in that theater would have had any interest in the Euros. And people are really sort of outraged that this seems to prioritize sports and football over theatre. And it kind of makes a mockery of theatre. And I truly don't think it's that deep. First of all, it was only a few minutes. Second of all, I don't think doing this presumed that everyone in the building would care about it. I think it was just a reality, the situation. And there's also a lot of people who do. I also think, and I used to be someone who made it my personality to be like, I like theater and I hate sports. I don't like football. We have learned from the recent past that the Venn diagram of people who like going to the theater and people who like football is not two separate circles. There's overlap there. This year's Olivier Award winning best new play was Dear England, a play which is getting imminently remounted and having its ending rewritten because of the ongoing Euros matches. If you don't know it's a new play by James Graham, all about the England football team and their manager, Gareth Southgate. It's a little bit Ted Lasso esque, if that reference means anything to you. But what that play highlights, among many other things, is the significance of England football matches in the national consciousness. And though this doesn't happen often, this isn't the only thing that has preempted performances before. When Queen Elizabeth II sadly passed away, many performances in the West, I think, I mean, every performance in the West End, I believe, had to honor a moment's silence in acknowledgement prior to performances. And that's not to suggest that everyone in that audience is British. It's not to suggest that all of the British people in that audience are monarchists. But I don't remember there being such outrage on the same level. Maybe some people weren't happy about it, I don't know. But it's also possible to just Sit there. And it doesn't represent an enormous amount of time. Which brings us to the next thing that people are complaining about. So people aren't happy because of the whole delay thing. And I've seen a lot of people complaining, saying, if I had a train to catch afterwards, if this disrupted my travel plans, if this made me miss my last train out of London, I would have been furious. And there are a few follow ups to that, which is that, you know, the whole thing took about 10 minutes. And a show could be delayed by 10 minutes for any number of reasons. I'm pretty sure when I saw 6 on Broadway last night, it went up about 10 minutes late. Like that happens. You can also get shown show stops in the middle. That can delay the show for an extended amount of time or just have to cancel the rest of the performance. Intervals can run long. Press night performances, dear God, they can start like anywhere between five and 30 minutes late, sometimes just wrangling everyone into their seats. And that's one of the great and also challenging things about live theatre is nothing is really explicitly guaranteed. But also in this instance, this theatre is five minutes from a major travel interchange, Waterloo station, literally a five minute walk from that station. It's also 90 minutes long. And so if a 10 minute delay to the start of that has you potentially missing the last train, then you are always playing with fire to begin with. Going back though, to a little bit of defense about people who are mad about all of this. I do get some of it because I also, like I said, I made it my personality for a long time when I was a teenager to be like, I don't like sports, but I do like theater and I get a little bit of the theatre kid football trauma. Not only did I endure a lot of stressful primary and secondary school sports experience experiences, but just being in the United Kingdom when football is happening can be challenging because of the way that football fans react to it, because of the way that they behave afterwards. If England wins, if England doesn't win, if their local team wins, if their local team doesn't win. Trying to be on those trains, trying to be around those stadiums, trying to just move around the country, it can be intimidating, it can be disruptive, it can be violent. As is also depicted in Dear England. There is a lot of hugely negative behavior that goes along with football culture. Unfortunately, it's not exclusively negative. I have to assume that the majority of football fans are incredibly well behaved. Same with the majority of theater goers. You know, like negative behavior is not something exclusive to attendees of sporting matches. We've heard plenty of stories about negative behavior in the theater. Admittedly, the negative theater behavior usually comes with less violence. Not none, but less. And I get it as well that it's disappointing to feel like theatre is deprioritized when it comes to sports. And sports has given such priority in this country and such focus, and people care about it so much more. And the way that we treat these two things, and like preempting a theatrical performance for a sporting match, it does kind of subconsciously set the idea of theatre being subordinate, theatre being less important. And, you know, people wouldn't care about the play because they're going to watch them out on their phones regardless. Like that being people's priority and adhering to that. Does it send the wrong message? I don't know. I think in this specific circumstance where it's just a few minutes delay, it's truly not that big a deal. I also saw someone commenting that another theater that went up on time had huge issues for the first 15 minutes with people in loads of different sections still insisting on watching it on their phone and that being very disruptive. So ultimately, it was for the benefit of all the audience members that this play, which, you know, had a 90 minute run time and had the luxury of having a small cast that could come out and banter and chat with the audience. They made a good decision. I'm sure there are other shows in the West End that face challenges. I'm just adding in another thought while I'm editing this video here and I'm wondering, do we think there would be this much rage and controversy if this was anyone else other than James Corden in these headlines? And I have to honestly say I think the answer is no. I think there is a certain predisposition, like people are already annoyed at James Corden. There is very much an anti James Corden backlash. And there are, you know, there are negative stories from the past about his behavior which I haven't heard anything of recently during this run of the show in London. And also I think, like, you know, reports of how a person behaves from a third party experience, being perceived as a celebrity. They have a lot going on. There's a lot happening in their lives. I don't know him personally. I never want to judge someone's character based on stuff like that. You know, at the same time, I also think the theater community specifically is not hugely endeared to James Corden. And he's seen very much as an outsider specifically to like musical Theater because he's become the guy that people are worried is going to get cast in movie musicals. Post into the woods where he was the baker, post the prom. And, you know, I've played into that as well because I made a video saying he shouldn't have been in the prom. And I stand by that because I think he was miscast in that film adaptation. I don't think it was malicious. I think he, you know, tried to do a sincere and authentic job, but it was just a little beyond his capabilities in that particular role. And there was this whole like, God, I hope he's not Dillamund in the Wicked movie. I think amongst all of that, we are sort of willfully forgetting that he has theatrical roots and he has musical theater roots prior to his screen success. So worth remembering all of that as well. And he's made the choice to come back to theater and to do a new play at the Old Vic and to do new writing in a show where it's not him above the title and everyone else, it's not him playing. It's not like him playing James Corden on stage. He is portraying a character. It's a three person cast. It's very balanced. I think Anna Maxwell Martin gets more of the thrust of the piece, honestly. So I give him an awful lot of credit for doing this play and for making his theatrical return in this way. And I don't think enough people are giving him credit for that, in fact. And, you know, I think it's a shame if this story is what this otherwise just like, nice enough run of this show gets remembered for. Anyway, back to my final thoughts about this. But to conclude, it really does seem like it was a small delay that was not likely to interrupt any sensible travel plans. It did not come solely from James Corden. And people, people seem to respond to it very positively. Inside the theater. All of the rage that I've seen is coming exclusively from people who were not at this performance who are outraged on their behalf. We can also conclude some people like theatre, some people like sports, some people like both, and that's okay. And finally, if you thought the 10 minute delay to the constituent was stressful, get ready for Wednesday night when an entire more significant match is going to be running concurrently with a bunch of different West End shows. To those audience members, I say, please stay at home and watch the football or go to the theater. You can't do both. You have to choose. But that, I feel like, is everything I have to say and everything that I want to say about this particular story. I'm sure you have many opinions that you can share in the comments section down below. I'm very intrigued about non British viewers and whether you think we're all ridiculous for caring this much about this story and how you think this would have been handled in the US on Broadway. Yet it does seem like a very different cultural response and for British people in the comments section. What side of this debate are you on? Do you think this was outrageous from the cast and the crew all wanting to watch this along with the audience? Do you think it was fair enough? Do you think this is all being blown out of proportion? Let me know all of your thoughts and feelings in the comments section down below. In the meantime, make sure you're subscribed to my theatre themed YouTube channel for more theatre news, reviews and vlogs coming very soon. I hope that everyone is staying safe and that you have a stagey day. For 10 more seconds, I'm Micky Jo Theatre. Oh my God. Hey, thanks for watching. Have a stagey day. Subscribe.