REVIEW: Hot Lips and Cold War (London Theatre Workshop) ★★
A weak script, focussing on the lives of JFK, Jackie Kennedy and Marilyn Monroe, ungently punctuated with curiously forgettable ballads; this is the confused musical from Lizzie Freeborn that attempts to re-tell the story of America’s First Family 1962-63. However, the central narrative – the Kennedy marriage – is consistently undermined by (and eventually lost […]
REVIEW: ALL OR NOTHING (Arts Theatre) ★★
After an extensive UK tour All or Nothing – The Mod Musical has been given a limited season in the West End at the Arts Theatre. The show – conceived by ex-Eastenders’ star Carol Harrison – is another crowd pleasing jukebox musical along the same lines as Sunny Afternoon (which featured the music of The Kinks), […]
REVIEW: MOONLOG (Chickenshed Studio Theatre)
Chickenshed in North London is hosting a month of monologues with four performances each evening in the Studio Theatre; two from known writers and two new pieces by new writers, new directors and new actors, a real Chickenshed experience. The evening begins with a piece from Alan Bennet’s Talking Heads. ‘Her Big Chance’ was performed […]
REVIEW: Long Day’s Journey into Night (Wyndham’s Theatre) ★★★
Your expectations are always going to be difficult to meet when a play not only boasts a stellar cast but is also described as ‘one of the finest American plays of the 20th century’. And as the theatrical heavyweights first take to the stage, the acting credentials are immediately obvious. Wonderfully wordy and poetic dialogue […]
REVIEW: HEDDA GABLER (New Victoria Theatre) ★★★★
Woking’s New Victoria Theatre is perhaps best known for its staging of popular main stream productions, However occasionally it delivers a real “Tour De Force” and Director Ivo Van Hove makes his debut with a radical new version of Ibsen’s most famous play. Hedda Gabler has just returned from her honeymoon with George Tesman, an […]
REVIEW: JULIUS CAESAR (Bridge Theatre) ★★★★★
The arrival of Nicholas Hytner’s interpretation of Shakespeare’s ‘Julius Caesar’ has been highly anticipated. The classic historical tale of autocracy, treachery and mutiny is no easy challenge, particularly with the news that it was a promenade staging with audience involvement throughout, however it is one that is faced head on and smashed into a million […]
REVIEW: MADONNA OR WHORE? (VAULT Festival) ★★★★
THE MADONNA WHORE COMPLEX. THE SONGS OF MADONNA. The premise of ‘Madonna Or Whore?’ is an appealing one if you are attracted to both pop philosophy and the hits of the Italian American diva herself. It’s presented as part of the Vault Festival, with over three hundred new shows running from January 24th to March […]
REVIEW: THE UNGRATEFUL BIPED (White Bear Theatre) ★★★
Modern society blasts a lot of opinions into vast empty space: Via Twitter, Facebook, YouTube… Cue the Underground Man, who, as adapted and portrayed by Philip Goodhew, records his video blog in a dingy London flat. After a pretty unsuccessful 40+ years on this planet, always at the sidelines, never part of ‘the group’, he […]
REVIEW: SHREK (Sunderland Empire) ★★★★★
A giant ogre, a talking donkey, a magical princess, a tiny Lord and a fire breathing dragon – all quite feasible characters for an animated movie but surely a challenge to portray as a live stage musical – or so you’d think, but under the expert direction of Nigel Harman (and aided in no small […]
REVIEW: Eugenius! (The Other Palace) ★★★
The Other Palace celebrates its first birthday with a full production of Eugenius! following a well-received concert performance at the London Palladium last year. The show is a new British musical written by Ben Adams and Chris Wilkins inspired by the films and music of the 1980s. Nerdy Eugene dreams of a distant world of […]