Category: Reviews

REVIEW: SONGS FOR A NEW WORLD (Courtyard Theatre) ★★★★

Songs for a New World is City Academy’s first performance from their Concert Company, and what an impressive debut it is. Originally written and composed by Jason Robert Brown in 1995, Songs for a New World has been described as an ‘abstract musical’, due to its song cycle structure. Reconfigured for The Courtyard Theatre by […]

REVIEW: KRISTIN CHENOWETH – THE ART OF ELEGANCE ★★★★

Whether it’s storming around as ‘Sally’ in You’re A Good Man Charlie Brown, coming and going by bubble as the formerly known “Ga-linda” in Wicked, belting Hopelessly Devoted To You to a pie maker in Pushing Daisies, playing Nicole Kidman’s best friend in the film Bewitched or joyously singing P!NK’s Raise Your Glass in international […]

REVIEW: 1984 (Playhouse Theatre) ★★★★

The first comment I’ll make is this; 1984 is best appreciated from one of the following means of preparation: a) read the book before seeing the play, b) read up on at least the basic premise of the play before you see it or c) just prepare yourself for the reality that this is not […]

REVIEW: THE GREATER GAME (Southwark Playhouse) ★★★★★

I am not a cynical person but when I see two, more or less, identical stories in one week, I feel that I should question it. A short time ago I watched (and thoroughly enjoyed) Brass about a group of men, all part of a Northern brass band, deciding to volunteer, as a group, to […]

REVIEW: CATS (Sunderland Empire) ★★★★

Sunderland Empire has been creatively transformed into a great big, beautiful rubbish heap for this faithfully resurrected extravaganza. Based on “Old Possum’s Book of Cats”, the poems of TS Eliot, the story is told entirely in song and dance to the music of Andrew Lloyd Webber. Webber has smartly mined the natural music in Eliot’s […]

REVIEW: NO MAN’S LAND (Wyndhams Theatre) ★★★

Is there a better duo than Sir Ian McKellen and Sir Patrick Stewart? Two of the finest British actors, together on stage in Pinter’s absurdist play. It sounds almost too good to be true and indeed the play starts off with exceptional promise. A chance meeting between two men, Spooner (Ian McKellen) and Hirst (Patrick […]

REVIEW: POSSIBILITIES (Theatre Utopia) ★★★★

This performance is the second production by the Misprint Theatre which comprises Katherine Carlton and Jamal Chong, both of whom are credited with sharing the writing of the Possibilities script as well as starring in the play. Jamal is also credited with actually owning the Theatre Utopia building. This is a short play lasting less than […]

REVIEW: Things I Know to be True (Lyric Hammersmith) ★★★★

Premiered in Adelaide, Australia, this co-production between Frantic Assembly and the State Theatre Company of South Australia is now showing at the Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith. Andrew Bovell’s poetic and bold play is a touching portrait of a family through the eyes of the children, who know they have to go their own way, which might […]

REVIEW: GROWTH (The Lighthouse, Poole’s Centre for the Arts) ★★★★

Whilst undergoing refurbishment, the Lightouse, Poole’s Centre for the Arts, has managed to keep theatre goers content by hosting The Roundabout Festival in Poole Park, the world’s first travelling ‘plug and play’ round theatre that flat packs entirely into the back of a single lorry. Growth was written by rising playwright Luke Norris and is […]