Hollywood-on-Thames

When crowds clamor for autographs and paparazzi flashbulbs light up the night in London's West End this summer, they aren't rubbernecking a celebrity "walkabout" for some Hollywood premier. In the British capital, the focus has shifted. A spate of new plays studded with big-screen stars has crowds lining the streets--and filling seats--in London's theater district. The phenomenon is nothing new: in recent years Hollywood stars have peppered their share of London stages. But this year more actors than ever are trading the silver screen for a summer treading the boards. Agents believe it's a good chance to get experience without the high-profile drama of a film flop. Movie stars--accustomed to playing a role just for cameras and crew, then waiting months for audience feedback--say there's something very gratifying about immediate applause and working on a stage, without high-tech special effects.

But are the stars simply scratching a self-indulgent itch, or are these productions actually worth seeing? Critics didn't hesitate to lampoon "Cloaca," the first play directed by Kevin Spacey in London last fall, proving that even the biggest names don't get automatic plaudits. Nor were they complimentary about Val Kilmer's star turn in "The Postman Always Rings Twice," which opened earlier this month at the Playhouse theater. For the most part, though, the plays are good. This summer has seen a glut of critically acclaimed openings, pushing audience numbers up 5 percent and boosting box-office revenue in London's theater district by 14 percent over last year. "There are some very strong offerings at the moment," says Richard Pulford, chief executive of the Society for London Theatre. And, he adds, the big musicals which opened at the end of last year are still doing very well. Cameron Mackintosh's dark, captivating production of the musical "Mary Poppins" and Andrew Lloyd Webber's ghostly "The Woman in White" got the West End going again last fall after a year of doom-and-gloom statistics about evaporating audiences and dilapidated venues. This year, Brooke Shields kick-started London's star-studded summer with a box-office hit, opening as cunning femme fatale Roxie in the musical "Chicago" in April. A bevy of big-screen thespians are still coming: Starting in August, Rob Lowe will be appearing in the courtroom drama "A Few Good Men," and it is widely rumored that Ashley Judd may make her West End debut this autumn in "Burn This."

Here is our take on four of the most-talked about productions:

'Some Girl(s)'

KINDLY STOP CALLING ME ROSS read a headline in the London Sunday Times profiling former "Friends" star David Schwimmer on the eve of his West End debut in Neil LaBute's typically edgy "Some Girl(s)." Schwimmer stars as an egocentric, fiction-writing New Yorker who, on the eve of his wedding to a sweet nursing student a decade his junior, decides to pay a last call on four ex-girlfriends, each in a different U.S. city. Known only as "the Man," his aim is to reconcile himself to his past and enter married life with a clean slate. There are similarities with the goofy, sometimes pitiful character he played on "Friends." As the anonymous Man, Schwimmer greets his exes awkwardly, in meetings that are full of painful silences, slapstick moments and cumbersome dives for the minibar. But Schwimmer goes beyond caricature. His character's egotistic quest reveals a trail of bitterness, and depths of thoughtlessness and cruelty that the sitcom never touched. Gielgud theater, Shaftsbury Avenue; through Aug. 13.

'The Philadelphia Story'