REVIEW: LAST OF THE BOYS (Southwark Playhouse)
About a year ago, director John Haidar wrote to various regional theatres in the U.S. asking for recommended works that they had staged but which had not yet made their way across the pond. The Steppenwolf Theater Company in Chicago, one of the regional powerhouses of new American writing, included Last of the Boys by […]
REVIEW: The Stephen Sondheim Society Student Performer of the year
This was the 10th Anniversary of the annual Stephen Sondheim Society Student Performer of the Year Competition, (SSSSPOTY for short) and the 9th year for the annual Stiles + Drewe (SAD) Prize for best new song, as well as the first year for their new MTI Membership Award supported by Music Theatre International. It’s a […]
REVIEW: JELLY BEANS (Theatre 503)
Jelly Beans is the latest work from Kuleshov Theatre and the debut play by Dan Pick. It’s a dark, disorientating one-man play that chronicles a day in the depressing existence of an unnamed 25-year-old degenerate. However, far from an irritating millennial whinge, Jelly Beans is a nuanced cautionary tale. It explores the bleak consequences of […]
REVIEW: Devilish! – A Musical Comedy (Landor Theatre)
Inspired by John Ruskin’s quote that an angel who fell down to earth would be shot on sight, H. G. Wells wrote his novel “The Wonderful Visit” about an angel who finds himself in a Kentish village and is taken in by a kindly vicar. Chris Burgess contemplated adapting the novel but decided against it, […]
REVIEW: SAUCY JACK AND THE SPACE VIXENS (Kings Head Theatre)
Saucy Jack and the Space Vixens is a cult musical, often compared to the Rocky Horror Show due to its sci-fi story and off-the-wall antics. Originally written for the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, the show has enjoyed more than twenty years of success around the world. I donned my glitter boots and hoofed it down to […]
REVIEW: INTO THE HOODS: REMIXED (The Peacock Theatre)
First things first — don’t be fooled by the title. Into the Hoods: Remixed may remind you of Sondheim’s Into the Woods, but ZooNation have ‘remixed’ the story for a modern, younger audience. Perhaps modernised it too much. Telling the story of two lost children, representing the Baker and his wife, they find themselves in […]
REVIEW: THE LOCAL STIGMATIC (Old Red Lion Theatre)
First staged at the Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh in 1966, before transferring to The Royal Court in the same year, The Local Stigmatic by poet / playwright / painter / sculptor Heathcote Williams shocked audiences with its raw and unprovoked violence and is considered a ‘Cult Classic’ today. Al Pacino was impressed enough to turn the […]
REVIEW: NUDE (The Hope Theatre)
A hollow cube of fluorescent light hangs suspended in the murky, cavernous space of the Hope Theatre. Inside, a man and woman sit apart, frozen in thought. A figure, clad in white, circles the space and breathes life into the static pair, guiding them first through a romance and then the relationship that ensues. Nude, […]
REVIEW: ELEGY (Donmar Warehouse)
Memory loss is becoming a popular topic of discussion in theatre recently, with productions such as Florian Zeller’s The Father and Barney Norris’s Visitors packing a punch in these last couple of years. Nick Payne’s production of Elegy continues this with an elegant and muted portayal of memory loss. This may be a love story, […]
REVIEW: THE BUSKERS OPERA (Park Theatre)
Douglas Irvine’s brand new musical, The Buskers Opera, has been in the making for the last five years but with the backing of Finsbury Park’s Park Theatre and the upcoming London election, it was perfect timing to finish the show in time to have its World Premiere on the evening of the 2016 Election. And […]