REVIEW: CAMELOT (London Palladium) ★★★★★
Enchanting. Passionate. Rousing. The London Musical Theatre Orchestra’s concert version of Camelot is all of these things and more. I can scarcely think of a better way to spend a cold autumn evening than listening to Lerner and Loewe’s moving score played by an orchestra and company as marvellous as this. Most famous for the […]
REVIEW: Northern Ballet: The Three Musketeers (Nottingham Theatre Royal) ★★★
Nothern Ballet’s production of The Three Musketeers pirouetted its way into Theatre Royal Nottingham last week. Watching The Three Musketeers felt a little bit like reading a novel that’s had every other page torn out, creating several plot holes and unexplained scenarios. I once read another reviewer’s comment that the plot “falls over itself”, and […]
REVIEW: Mrs Dalloway (Arcola Theatre) ★★★★
Virgina Woolf was one of the most prolific writers of the 20th century. Best known for Mrs Dalloway (1925) and Lighthouse (1927), her diary entries, essays, letters, biographies and novels are canonised for reflecting the rapidly changing world she lived in. Documenting transformations in technology, sexuality, class and gender roles, Woolf’s style of modernist literature, […]
REVIEW: Rock of Ages (Wycombe Swan) ★★
The tale of two halves…. It was only my commitment to this review that stopped me from walking out of this performance at the interval. As the lights went up at the end of the first act, a teenage boy behind me, part of a school party, sniggered “I didn’t know I was coming to […]
REVIEW: Pinter One / Pinter Two (Harold Pinter Theatre) ★★★★
The Jamie Lloyd Company’s epochal season Pinter At The Pinter is making a lot of noise for a writer famed for his silences. Ten years on from Pinter’s death, the first two of seven servings of his complete one-act plays gave us a direct sense of his anger and shock value, and his under-regarded humour. […]
REVIEW: WICKED (Apollo Victoria Theatre) ★★★★★ (2018)
Wicked, based on the American novel ‘Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West’ by Gregory Maguire, is not, in fact, a prequel as everyone deems. The musical, utilising the same themes and characters as The Wizard of Oz, is described by the author as ‘a re-imagining of the same world’, […]
REVIEW: Kinky Boots (Royal & Derngate) ★★★★
Following successful runs on both the West End and Broadway, Kinky Boots is stepping out to the provinces. So where better to kick off the tour than in Northamptonshire where it all began? Kinky Boots is based on the true story of Steve Pateman who took over an Earl’s Barton shoe factory when his father […]
REVIEW: 42nd Street (Theatre Royal Drury Lane) ★★★★★
From its opening overture to its infectious toe-tapping finale, 42nd Street is pure theatre. I don’t actually think shows get more theatrical than this. Chorus guys and gals tap-dance their way through a story about the production of a new musical hit, set in the heart of New York’s legendary theatre district, with one delightfully hummable […]
REVIEW: Collabro – Road To The Royal Albert Hall ★★
Collabro are back with their recently-released fourth album, “Road To The Royal Albert Hall“, so named in honour of their upcoming 2019 concert date which presumably they’re quite happy about (and I’m guessing “Road To Southend-On-Sea” wouldn’t have had quite the same ring. Although I’m sure it’s lovely). The ‘Britain’s Got Talent’ winners are clearly […]
REVIEW: 4.48 Psychosis (New Diorama Theatre) ★★★★★
Deafinitely Theatre brings its celebrated bilingual approach to Sarah Kane’s 4.48 Psychosis, a lyrical and haunting play about mental health. 4.48 Psychosis has no specified setting, stage directions or characters, meaning that productions of the play vary greatly. This production explores the taboo of mental illness within the death community using a cast of four, […]