REVIEW: BRITTEN IN BROOKLYN (Wilton’s Music Hall) ★★
There’s a moment towards the end of Britten in Brooklyn in which Sadie Frost, making her stage comeback as Gypsy Rose Lee, describes how the setting and lifestyle herself and her artistic peers choose to live in is, ‘false…it doesn’t mean anything’. This somehow rings true to this production overall. Set in 1941, Benjamin Britten […]
REVIEW: COUNTING STARS (Theatre Royal Stratford East) ★★★★
Counting Stars is a single act play, lasting sixty five minutes in which two actors play all the parts. Each actor plays one principle character and two supplementary characters who are less central, but still important to the story. The actors talk directly to the audience and not to each other throughout, at least not […]
REVIEW: IF WE GOT SOME MORE COCAINE I COULD SHOW YOU HOW I LOVE YOU (Old Red Lion) ★★★★
It’s Halloween in a small Irish town, and Casey and Mikey find themselves on top of Casey’s roof, hiding from the cops and well-stocked with drugs, cash and booze – but ultimately stuck, with nothing to do but wait for the all-clear. Hypothetically set two floors above the ground, the audience sits at eye-level observing […]
REVIEW: GETTING MARRIED TODAY (Phoenix Artist Club) ★★★★
It is just an hour before Kate and Bill are due to be married and Kate is having second thoughts. It falls to her Maid of Honour and good friend, Alice, to bring her round. So begins a charming two act, funny, musical play. Kate is having pre-wedding doubts, questioning why she wants to be […]
REVIEW: THE ENTERTAINER (Garrick Theatre) ★★★
My, how time flies. The Kenneth Branagh Theatre Company’s 13 month long ‘Plays at the Garrick’ season is drawing to a close and most would agree it’s been an artistic and critical success. There have been few wobbles along the way — a stylized but not totally captivating Romeo and Juliet for example. In the […]
REVIEW: MADE IN DAGENHAM (Queens Theatre Hornchurch) ★★
Based on the 2010 movie of the same name, Made In Dagenham the musical (which premiered at the West End’s Adelphi Theatre in 2014) comes home to the Queens Theatre in Hornchurch. The story of the 1968 equal pay strike by female sewing machinists at Ford’s Dagenham factory was a daring choice by the Queens’ […]
REVIEW: THE MISERABLES (Just The Tonic at the Caves) ★★★
We have all had a job that we’ve hated, a job that pays the bills but slowly chips away at your sanity. If you haven’t well then, lucky you (said through gritted teeth). The Miserables is the story of that feeling. Set to the tune of Les Miserablés. The songs are the best bit about […]
REVIEW: MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING (Selfridges’ reFASHIONed Theatre) ★★★★
As you may or may not know, Sir William Shakespeare fancied himself a bit of a comedian, occasionally taking a break amongst his usual feats of tragedy and historical dramas to create ‘Much Ado About Nothing’, written in (it is believed) about 1598-1599. The title of the play gives clues to the plot, which entails […]
REVIEW: CHILDREN OF EDEN (The Union Theatre) ★★
Children Of Eden is the re-telling of the story of the book of Genesis. The show premiered in the West End twenty five years ago, where is ran for just three months and received little praise. The show is now being staged at the new Union Theatre in the heart of Southwark. The Union Theatre […]
REVIEW: BRASS (Hackney Empire) ★★★★
Sixty years ago my parents used to reminisce nostalgically about the demise of the Hackney Empire music hall and so entering that big, lovely, traditional theatre was exiting for me. I was not disappointed. It is lovely, ornate and has been beautifully restored. The ‘acney ’empire, to quote my parents, is now a long way […]