'Sex and the Waterloo & City Line': Sarah Jessica Parker hails 'exquisite' London transport system

The Sex and the City star said she wanted “to be completely conversant” with the Tube
Plaza Suite
By Neil Simon
Directed By John Benjamin Hickey

Sarah Jessica Parker
Mathew Broderick
Sarah Jessica Parker stars in the play alongside her husband Matthew Broderick
Joan Marcus
Robert Dex @RobDexES29 January 2024
The Weekender

Sign up to our free weekly newsletter for exclusive competitions, offers and theatre ticket deals

I would like to be emailed about offers, event and updates from Evening Standard. Read our privacy notice.

Sex and the City star Sarah Jessica Parker praised London’s "exquisite" transport system as she made her West End debut.

The actress, who is starring in Plaza Suite at the Savoy Theatre with her husband Matthew Broderick, said the couple had become firm fans of the Underground — but were less enthusiastic about the opening hours of the capital’s restaurants.

Parker said she wanted “to be completely conversant” with the Tube, adding: “I want to know Jubilee, Piccadilly, Northern."

She told What's On Stage: "I want to know Edgware, I want to know all of it, Barnet, High Hill (sic), whatever. I want all of it and I even found a map store that takes me back to the early maps of the Forties. So your system here is so exquisite, you have great public transport.”

The play, about three different couples staying in the same New York hotel room, is also Parker’s West End debut — but she explained it was not her first appearance in a London theatre, having come to the capital as a child star.

Speaking to the Standard at the play’s opening on Sunday night, she said: "I rehearsed my first Broadway play here but that doesn’t count. My first Broadway play was a production of The Innocents and Harold Pinter directed it and Claire Bloom starred in it.

"We rehearsed in London because Harold and Claire were here and then we rehearsed it on the stage of the Drury Lane Theatre which was quite something, this was 1976 and then we brought the show to the US."

The couple, who have been married since 1997 and have three children, said they had never been able to work together before because of childcare issues — Broderick said the couple had actively tried to “not be on the same schedule so somebody could be home”.

He said the couple did not "talk much about the show" as they did not want to "do the show, talk about it, come back do the show again, talk more about it", and Parker revealed much of their conversation was "more related to how will we get to a kitchen that’s remaining open".

She said: "I could go on and on about how deeply in love I am with this city. However, you have a curtain that comes down at 10.12pm-10.14pm and it’s your big meal of the day and you’re starving and the hustle to get there before you’re holding up an entire staff and a kitchen, which is the last thing we want to do. That’s the talk that surrounds the show — ‘where is our meal tonight?’"

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in