Rose Ayling-Ellis’s Shakespeare show upset by a ‘shocking anti-deaf’ rant

ON SATURDAY, The Londoner was at the Soho Place Theatre to catch one of the last performances of As You Like It.

Midway through the matinee show, a man sitting in the circle started ranting. “I’m being discriminated against”, he cried, claiming the performers were “discriminating against hearing people”. He was upset by the presence of four screens displaying Shakespeare’s verse for the benefit of deaf theatre-goers.

Actor Rose Ayling-Elli, who plays Celia, also happens to be deaf, and says the remarks were directed at her. “He was looking at me directly. It was shocking,” she said. He was told to leave by other audience members. The play resumed with Touchstone’s remark: “The more pity, that fools may not speak wisely what wise men do foolishly”. “It seemed an appropriate reproach,” says our man in the stalls.

Some saintly advice for the King

Fans of Charles I had some advice for new monarch Charles III at a service at All Saints Church, Marylebone, yesterday to mark the 374th anniversary of the late King’s execution

The Society of King Charles the Martyr marks the occasion each year, and an eclectic congregation included GB News presenters and heads of Oxford colleges. Advising the King on his coronation, Reverend Nicholas Johnson told him not to “acquiesce too much to those who would seek to shorten the proceedings: after all, three hours is not so long for such a wondrous ceremony”. He said he hopes our monarch “may take some inspiration from his saintly predecessor”.

Given the first Charles’s sticky end, Buckingham Palace may beg to differ.

In defence of Andrea

OSCAR hopeful Andrea Riseborough’s co-star Marc Maron has come to her defence over queries about her nomination. The actress’s nod for independent film To Leslie is being ‘investigated’ by the Academy after other actors were asked by director Michael Morris’s wife Mary McCormack to back her on social media. Maron said it was a “grassroots campaign”, and studios were upset about their “corporate interest”.

Liz’s American fans

SHORT-serving PM Liz Truss was welcomed as a fallen hero on a recent visit to Washington DC. She did the rounds at tax-cutting Republican think-tanks, along with Tory allies Jake Berry and Brandon Lewis. One Republican congressman, Kevin Hern, told her she had tried to “save Great Britain”, reports Politico. Hern denied the results of Joe Biden’s 2020 election win, so is used to living in cloud cuckoo land.

Pretty in pink for the Cabaret Club

Londoner’s Diary 31st January 23

EMMA Weymouth, Marchioness of Bath, and Arlene Phillips helped choose some new performers for The London Cabaret Club yesterday at some open auditions. Later on, rugby star Maro Itoje, activist Bianca Jagger and artist Conrad Sharcross were at a charity auction in aid of the National Academy of Arts in Ukraine at The Royal Academy.

Elsewhere, YouTube star Amelia Dimoldenberg, whose flirty interview with actor Andrew Garfield recently went viral, put his face on her 29th birthday cake. And model Naomi Campbell did some boxing in the gym.