musicals
alexandra.coghlan
Over in Southwark you can currently find Rodgers and Hammerstein exploring the seamier side of life among the prostitutes and drop-outs of Pipe Dream, but in the woody amphitheatre of the Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre it’s all raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens. Nuns, Nazis and singing children are an unlikely recipe for the most wholesome of all family musicals, but against all odds this 1950s classic is still an irrepressible hit – get out of the way or prepare to be reduced to a giddy, ecstatic wreck by a production that will send you home singing.Director Rachel Kavanaugh has no Read more ...
David Nice
Rodgers and Steinbeck: sound unlikely? Well, self-proclaimed “family show” man Hammerstein may have baulked at words like "whorehouse" when he created a play for music out of Steinbeck’s Cannery Row and Sweet Thursday. But by 1955 the R&H duo had already dealt with issues like miscegenation and ageism (South Pacific), domestic violence (Carousel) and slavery (The King and I), so Steinbeck’s north Californian coastal community of amiable social dropouts, drunks and whores might not have been totally unexpected territory. Tough Pipe Dream isn’t: "It’s a beautiful show," declared Steinbeck Read more ...
Sam Marlowe
It’s all stick and no lollipop, a chocolate box stuffed with nothing but empty wrappers: what a walloping letdown this intensely anticipated musical based on Roald Dahl’s perennially popular 1964 children’s book turns out to be.With songs by Scott Wittman and Marc Shaiman – the team behind the irresistible feelgood hit Hairspray – a book by the highly respected playwright David Greig, and direction by the Donmar Warehouse founder and Oscar-winner Sam Mendes, it ought to be a giant peach. Instead, it’s as bland and sugary as cheap confectionery. And with so little to savour of Dahl’s delicious Read more ...
Jasper Rees
There is no formula for creating a hit musical. If there were, the history of the West End and Broadway would not be haunted by the many ghosts of bygone disasters. Let us not list them here. The lack of a roadmap notwithstanding, the long-awaited version of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is ticking all the right boxes.For a start, there’s the belt-and-braces title itself, much loved as a book but perhaps as widely known via two film versions from 1971 and 2005. It has a big-shot director in the form of Sam Mendes, and in David Greig a book-writer who knows how to entertain childen, having Read more ...
David Benedict
It opened with a standing ovation. And in a place the size of the 02 – the venue put on this earth to make Luton airport feel better – that’s impressive. It was that kind of evening: not so much Streisand in concert as an opportunity for worshippers at Barbra’s shrine to do a whole lot of basking in her genuinely unparalleled glory. Fifty years at the pinnacle of popular music is not to be sneezed at. That she can sing with a 60-piece orchestra and still deliver shiver-inducing money notes at the age of 71 is truly something. It is not, however, everything.Her vocal power and idiosyncrasy, Read more ...
David Nice
Fans of this bewilderingly popular musical, and they are legion, will not be disappointed. Director Tom Hooper knows how to tell a fast-moving tale that makes light of the final running time (originally 158 minutes, slightly shorter in this DVD release, which offers no extras. Those who went to the film more than once will, I'm told, miss a couple of scenes). The lighting is appropriately lugubrious, most of the settings convincing – though occasionally there’s too much dependence on CGI – and famously the singing actors perform their numbers on set, often in long takes. Casting is strong, Read more ...
Peter Michael Marino
If this native New Yorker were in a relationship with the city of London, our Facebook status would read: “It’s complicated.” We’ve been through hell together. London is one of my favourite cities. I blissfully cross the pond several times a year to teach and to see my mates. But, this fabulous city also bestowed on me the worst reviews I’ve ever gotten in my life. So, why the heck am I coming back to do yet a show about the very show that shattered my dreams? Insane!In 2007, I conceived and wrote the musical version of the Madonna movie Desperately Seeking Susan - which featured the hit Read more ...
Jasper Rees
In recent years theatre has sought assistance from a pair of popular art forms. Shows based either on movies, or on pop groups’ back catalogues, have become mainstays of the theatrical economy. So the latest musical to open in the West End has the whiff of boardroom cynicism. What happens when you randomly select a famous film and an iconic songbook, yoke them together and shove them out in front of the footlights? You get Desperately Seeking Susan, a 1985 film which starred a chubby-cheeked Madonna (pictured below), but featuring the greatest hits of Blondie.In fact the idea has the Read more ...
David Benedict
People sneer at musicals for endless reasons: they hate Broadway brashness, non-naturalistic lurches in and out of song, the sentimentality. One of the least acknowledged reasons, however, is because their plots – predictability plus songs – have zero tension. And you know what? Placed in the witness box, many a musical emerges guilty as accused. But the quietly astonishing Once is innocent of all those charges. Deftly exploding just about every myth about musicals, it’s simply riveting.The tension maintained throughout John Tiffany’s bewitching production is all the more remarkable Read more ...
Sam Marlowe
It’s one of the most anticipated theatrical openings of the year, with tickets allegedly changing hands for astronomical sums and some pundits rushing to issue dire warnings of the depths of its lewdness and its shattering shock factor well before its official first night. So can this musical by Robert Lopez and the incorrigible South Park creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker possibly live up the hype? The answer – rather like the existence (or not) of some supreme guiding deity – depends on your point of view. Is it fun (or, as those clean-cut Mormon boys with their ultra-white shirts, Read more ...
Laura Silverman
This stylish, witty musical celebrates the 50-year love affair between the first openly gay film star, William Haines, and Jimmy Shields, a set decorator. It embraces the fashion of the Twenties, the design of the Thirties, the glamour of the big film studios, and the freedom of unconventional lifestyles. A compelling story, fine tunes and some rather attractive actors make for a highly enjoyable evening.It's a pacey one, too, and Claudio Macor, the writer of the original play (performed several years ago in London and New York) and the director, covers a lot of ground. But the story is clear Read more ...
edward.seckerson
Even singular sensations grow older - yet A Chorus Line, which coined the phrase, seems ageless, so sure is it of its place in musical theatre history, so locked now into our theatrical consciousness. It is, no question, a wonderful show whose fabric of book (James Kirkwood and Nicholas Dante), music (Marvin Hamlisch) and lyrics (Edward Kleban) is seamless and, more importantly, whose vision - as originated by choreographer/director Michael Bennett - has achieved a kind of immortality.Bob Avian, who assisted on the original staging back in 1975, is now the show's guardian and watching this Read more ...