REVIEW: ASPECTS OF LOVE (Southwark Playhouse) ★★★
Although not premiered until 1989, Andrew Lloyd Webber’s ‘Aspects of Love’ was first conceived in 1979, when he and Tim Rice were approached to write some songs for the movie version of the David Garnett novella. The movie was shelved but this initial spark began the ten year journey to the fully staged musical (with […]
REVIEW: Benidorm Live (Sunderland Empire) ★★★★★
The move from the beloved TV series to stage play has gone seamlessly for Benidorm, due in no small way to the brilliant writing of Derren Litten. He has given life to all the characters he knows so well. In the fine tradition of farce, the story is based on a series of misunderstandings. Posh […]
REVIEW: ANOMALY (Red Lion Theatre) ★★★★
Anomaly is the debut play from Liv Warden, showing at the Old Red Lion Theatre. Warden began writing at the Soho Writers Lab in 2016; this play was first conceived in conjunction with the National Theatre playwriting course and finished at the Arcola Theatre ‘Introduction to Playwriting’ course at the end of last year. Warden […]
REVIEW: ORIGINAL DEATH RABBIT (Jermyn Street Theatre) ★★★
Rose Heiney’s monologue performed by Kimberley Nixon as the eponymous Death Rabbit offers a warning for those whose lives are dominated by social media, where a “like” can briefly give you a false idea of being the most important person in the world but where an anonymous adverse comment can prompt a disproportionate feeling of […]
REVIEW: THE WAR OF THE WORLDS (New Diorama Theatre) ★★★★
Isley Lynn’s unusual take on the HG Wells science-fiction classic The War Of The Worlds comes without any Martians but instead focuses of the mythology around Orson Welles’ 1938 radio broadcast and links this to the supposedly modern phenonium of ‘fake news’. The team from Rhum and Clay then weave the 1930s story with a […]
REVIEW: AN ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE (The Union Theatre) ★★★
Phil Willmott‘s three play season at The Union Theatre under the title ‘Enemies of the People‘ has opened with Arthur Miller‘s 1950’s adaption of Henri Ibsen‘s 1882 play set in Norway called ‘An Enemy of the People‘. As Willmott did last year so brilliantly, when he moved the timing of The Cherry Orchard to post […]
REVIEW: MOTOWN THE MUSICAL (The Bristol Hippodrome) ★★★
More than 60 truncated hits feature in ‘Motown the Musical’, the show written by Motown records founder Berry Gordy, which debuted on Broadway before arriving in London’s West End in 2016. I’m a big fan of the kind of straight forward fun offered by a jukebox musical, and a lover of Motown – so I […]
REVIEW: In Conversation with Graham Norton (The Hope Theatre) ★★★★
In Conversation with Graham Norton was first staged at The Hope Theatre in September 2018 for a short, sell out run. The debut play by Simon Perrott, directed by Joseph Winters, is back at The Hope Theatre for a longer run this month with Jay Parsons returning to the role of Mark for this one […]
REVIEW: SINATRA RAW (Live at Zedel) ★★★★★
Frank Sinatra died in 1998, his last performance was in 1995 and he gave many final farewell performances over his long career. Richard Shelton recreates a late night in 1971 around half way through his singing career when he performed in the Purple Room in Palm Springs to an audience of friends, as a warm […]
REVIEW: Pinter Five / Pinter Six (Harold Pinter Theatre) ★★★★
First and Last Things are brought to light in the newest instalments of Jamie Lloyd’s epochal season presenting all of Harold Pinter’s short plays. Pinter Five and Six take us from the unsettling claustrophobia of Pinter’s first play, 1957’s The Room, through to the satirical exasperation of his last, Celebration, from 2000. The complex violence […]