According to TVShowsondvd.com:

We've known since last November that Dawson's Creek - The Complete 5th Season was coming to DVD in the first half of 2005, and now Sony Pictures Home Entertainment has finally put fans out of their misery and made the formal annoucement. May 3rd is the day this arrives at stores, at a cost of $49.96 SRP. Running time is 986 minutes on a 4-DVD set. Specs are 1.33:1 Full Screen picture and English Dolby Surround sound. The set is closed captioned for the hearing impaired. The cover art, front and back, are shown below. The front is exactly the same shot we showed you back in November from an ad in Entertainment Weekly. The back cover shows a nice shot of the cast sitting on the campus lawn. Note that neither the back cover nor the release announcement mentions any extras on this compilation.

Josh presented the Best Performance In A Supporting Role award at the 2005 Olivier Awards.

He was quoted as saying "It's my first time, but I'm sitting with Patrick [Stewart] so at least I'm not all alone out there in the big, bad world..."

From: London Theatre Guide

There is another article on the awards at Whatsonstage.com

The official site for "A Life In The Theatre" has added a gallery with new pictures from the play. You can find them here.

Several recent arrivals to the West End - two plays, the Whatsonstage.com Award-winning Festen and David Mamet revival A Life in the Theatre, and Victoria Wood's debut musical Acorn Antiques - have announced extensions to their booking periods this week.

A Life in the Theatre, which opened at the Apollo Theatre on 2 February 2005 (previews from 27 January), has added one week to its limited season and is now booking up to 30 April 2005. In Lindsay Posner's new production of Mamet's 1977 two-hander Dawson's Creek TV heartthrob Joshua Jackson makes his professional stage debut playing opposite veteran Patrick Stewart in the comedy about two actors at different ends of their careers (See News, 22 Oct 2004).

Source: WhatsonStage.com

Joshua is supposedly going to be on T4 which is a children's program that starts at 8am UK time.

If we find out more info, we'll let you know, otherwise try to tune in and watch it, if you can get up that early;)

Thanks to Keith for the heads up.

Two hundred Whatsonstage.com theatregoers were treated to an extra surprise last night at the West End's Apollo Theatre. As part of our Outing to David Mamet's A Life in the Theatre, the planned post-show Q&A with director Lindsay Posner was enhanced by two last-minute guests, the production's stars Patrick Stewart and Joshua Jackson (pictured on stage at the event).

In 26 scenes over 84 minutes, Mamet's semi-autobiographical story follows two thespians who share a journey on and off stage together in a fading small town rep. Jackson plays aspiring newcomer John while Stewart is the grandiose veteran Robert.

In real life, Stewart is a classically trained actor and Royal Shakespeare Company veteran who was seen in the West End last year in The Master Builder and who has become internationally famous for his sci-fi screen roles in Star Trek and X Men. Canadian-born Jackson is best known for his role in long-running American TV series Dawson's Creek. A Life in the Theatre marks his adult professional stage debut.

During an exclusive half-hour discussion, the director and actors answered a variety of theatregoer questions, speaking openly about the play, the production and their own working relationships. Highlights from the discussion include the following.

On David Mamet

(This production marks Posner's third high-profile Mamet revival in as many years, following Oleanna and Sexual Perversity in Chicago. It is the first time that either actor has performed Mamet.)

Posner: "The thing I find most interesting about Mamet is that the dialogue is so brilliantly challenging. You have to spend ages unravelling it, finding the rhythm and form, which is heightened and poetic in a lot of ways. It's that demand that I enjoy."

Stewart: "I saw American Buffalo at the National Theatre in the 1970s, and it blew me away. I'd never heard dialogue like it, a mix of music, poetry and the vernacular. And not like Pinter – I knew that because I'd just done a Pinter. After seeing that, I always hoped I'd do a Mamet play."

Jackson: "The first thing is the language, even as a North American. The challenge of coming here and doing it in the home of theatre and the opportunity to make an ass of myself in another country was impossible to resist! The dialogue is poetic but very real, not flowery at all. It's sparse and sparing and the challenge is to unlock it."

On How to Learn Mamet Lines

Jackson: "Repetition, just going over and over it. There is a rhythm to it and you get to the point where it comes naturally. Usually, it is just the only possible word or sound that could come next and that is a testament to David Mamet."

Stewart: "I don’t know how you do it. There is one 'mmm' I have to do and it comes out as anything but every night! I resent learning lines so much now. I feel that, at my place in my career, I shouldn't have to learn. If we were in the 24th century on the Enterprise, there'd be a chip for this! It's not as hard as Pinter, though. Michael Pennington is an old friend of mine. He saw me at lunch a few weeks before we started and said 'I hear you're doing Mamet - you'll never learn it.'"

On the Accuracy of the Play's Portrait of Backstage Life

Stewart: "I'm the only one who's old enough to answer this question! Everything that happens has happened to me or I've watched it happen to another actor. It's all accurate. I know you're not meant to tell stories about royalty, but I'm going to break that rule, well sort of. Harold Pinter came to see one of the previews, and afterwards he came back to see me and said (in lamenting voice) 'oh that dressing room, that dressing room'. He recognised it and all of us who have done theatre would recognise it. It's authentic."

On Performing 'Bad' Play Excerpts within the Play

Stewart: "I found them the hardest bits to rehearse, and there's one of them I'd have loved to have cut (the surgical scene) – now I'm happier to do it. They are very, very tricky to do because the continuity of being John and Robert gets broken. We made a deal early on to do those parts as truthfully as we could and not to send the plays up."

On Their Own Relationship vs That of the Actors in the Play

Stewart: "It's not comparable yet, but we've another three months to go! We do keep having conversations in my dressing room identical to the ones the characters have."

Jackson: "It's not possible for it to be the same because Patrick is not in the place Robert is in in his professional or personal life. We are not in the same place as them. This (working on stage) has been a lot of catch-up for me, because these guys know what they are doing. They have allowed me the space to make mistakes."

Josh is nominated in the 2005 Most Alluring Canadian Awards by Fashion Magazine.

So show your support and vote for him!

Thanks to Taz for posting this on our board!

The company Peace Arch Films has revealed a fourth poster for "Shadows in the Sun". It appears to be the final version.

The first few critical reviews of "A Life In The Theatre" have showed up online. They seem to be quite positive of the play but a little mixed in terms of Josh's performance.

Times Online:

4 out of 5 stars

The trouble is that it is he who is supposed to be in decline and Jackson's John who is on the ladder to success. You could not tell that from the decent but unremarkable performance given by the actor from TV's Dawson's Creek.

Read the rest of the review here.

The Independent: Online Edition:

Unfortunately, neither the excellence of the directing, nor the slow-burn drollness of Joshua Jackson's performance can disguise the anorexic dramaturgy that is on offer here.

Read the rest of the review here.

Thanks to Jaycee for posting the second review on our board.

ETA: Broadway.com has posted an article that discusses the recent reviews of "A Life in The Theatre. It includes those mentioned about along with:

The Evening Standard:

"David Mamet's romantic view of the delights and difficulties of the acting business famously found expression in A Life in the Theatre. I was never much persuaded by Mamet's fusion of low comedy and high pathos, or his attempt to explain what he loves about the company of actors. Lindsay Posner's new production leaves me cool… The main trouble, apart from the muted direction, is the casting. The latest actors to put this double-act drama on stage--noted English classical actor Patrick Stewart and Joshua Jackson, Canadian star of television's teenage soap Dawson's Creek--are about as compatible as roast beef and a knickerbocker glory. Roles that demand close, sinuous, and ambivalent interplay, the subtle stirring of undercurrents of tension, are rendered down to a bland, bored politesse."

The Guardian:

"While David Mamet's 1977 piece is perfectly enjoyable and features two popular actors, I found myself hungering for something that satisfies the appetite rather than merely whets it... The best reason for seeing the piece is to catch Patrick Stewart's Robert. Although the setting is American, he brings an RSC-relish to keywords such as 'sound,' which he rolls lasciviously around his tongue. He subtly implies Robert's homoerotic affection for his young colleague as, at one point, he passionately seizes his left breast. He conveys the joyous melancholy of the actor's life, which provides an abundance of memories, passing with the swiftness of a dream. Joshua Jackson could do more to suggest his young colleague's testy resentment of patronising counsel. But he is precise and funny in the parodic interludes."

The rest of the article is here.

According to BBC-Radio 1:

Joshua Jackson from 'Dawson's Creek' has been telling Radio 1 about stripping off for his West End debut.

He stars alongside Patrick Stewart in 'A Life in the Theatre' which follows the friendship and rivalry of two actors in a small town theatre.

The play opens tonight (Wednesday) and has 26 scenes with loads of costume changes, which all had to be done on stage in front of the audience.

Joshua has to wear some very amusing seventies underpants but he's taking it in his stride:

"It's strangely liberating because once you've been in these ridiculous tidy whities - I think you call them briefs - you really can't feel uncomfortable about anything else."

"Once you've been that silly there is no shame in anything else - I mean, I'm wearing polka-dot underwear!"

"When the wardrobe mistress first showed me the underwear I thought 'Right, here we go!'"

"They're right for the character, and they are wonderfully right for the seventies, but damn, polka-dot underwear? Send me back to Canada!"

The critics will be there tonight but Joshua isn't too worried.

"My mother will be in the audience, so that will be slightly more nerve wracking."

"Because this will be my first time, I have yet to be savaged by the critics, so I have yet to learn the fear that I probably should have."

"I'm not actually too concerned, though afterwards I may be crushed."