musicals
Wonderful Town, Quick Fantastic, Opera Holland Park review - everybody's swinging itMonday, 05 July 2021
It’s a wonderful thing to hear a nine-piece Broadway-style band at full pelt, and to see real show dancing – the first time for me, in both cases, since early 2020. Wonderful, too, is this sassiest of 1950s musicals, for which those great lyricists... Read more... |
Hairspray, London Coliseum review - brighter and more welcome than everThursday, 01 July 2021
A revival of a multi-award winning musical, with a big star or two, may look like a safe choice to re-open London’s largest theatre, the Coliseum, but there was a tingle of jeopardy in the air, exemplified when the show catches you by surprise... Read more... |
In the Heights review - to life, Lin-Manuel Miranda-styleFriday, 18 June 2021
The general uptick of late in film versions of stage musical hits continues apace with In the Heights, which, to my mind anyway, is far more emotionally satisfying and visually robust onscreen than it was on Broadway, where it won the 2008 Tony for... Read more... |
Album: Lambchop - ShowtunesWednesday, 19 May 2021
Lambchop leader Kurt Wagner has suggested that the title of this album is semi literal: that he wanted to write “something akin” to classic, Great American Songbook show tunes, rather than his usual country-tinged style. If so, it’s for a rather... Read more... |
Music review - a few music videos cobbled togetherFriday, 19 February 2021
What did Sia want to achieve with Music, her deeply confused first stumble into filmmaking? The reclusive Australian has enjoyed years of global fame for a successful music career. Was it never enough?Music is about an autistic girl called Music (... Read more... |
Album: Sia - MusicFriday, 12 February 2021
It’s difficult to know where to start with Sia’s Music. The album is billed as a collection of songs “from and inspired by” the film of the same name – so not a soundtrack, except for when it is. It tracks range from candy coated to overly... Read more... |
A Christmas Carol, Dominion Theatre review - brash and bustling and snowy, tooTuesday, 15 December 2020
The twelve days of Christmas have nothing on the flotilla of Christmas Carols jostling for view this season, each of which is substantially different enough from the next so as to give Dickens's 1843 story its prismatic due. Hailing from Broadway,... Read more... |
The Great Gatsby, Immersive London review – a warm and electric tribute to the bookFriday, 23 October 2020
The Prohibition-era setting of The Great Gatsby brings an appropriately illicit feel to this bold decision to stage an immersive theatre event in the age of Covid. Where, in 1922, champagne was the essential liquid to get any evening going... Read more... |
Sleepless, Troubadour Wembley Park Theatre review - love from afar in this amiable musicalWednesday, 02 September 2020
Originally due to premiere back in March, Sleepless – a musical version of the winning 1993 movie Sleepless in Seattle – now acts as a test case for the return of fully staged but socially distanced indoor theatre, AKA Stage 4 of the Government’s “... Read more... |
One Enchanted Evening, Glastonbury Abbey review - concert of West End show tunesTuesday, 01 September 2020
On a normal bank holiday weekend there would be festival events held in the grounds of Glastonbury Abbey. But in this anything-but-normal year, choreographer and director Andrew Wright instead gathered together a group of people who live in or who... Read more... |
A Little Night Music, Opera Holland Park review - wasn't it bliss?Tuesday, 18 August 2020
A lot of rain and untold bliss: those were the takeaways from Saturday night’s alfresco Opera Holland Park concert performance of Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler’s eternally glorious 1973 musical, A Little Night Music. I doubt any of the 200... Read more... |
Theatre Unlocked 4: Shows in concert and a contemporary classic comes to TVThursday, 13 August 2020
After months spent sifting amongst the virtual, I'm pleased to report that live performance looks to be on the (socially distanced) rebound. The week ahead sees the start of a six-week run at the Open Air Theatre in Regent's Park of the alfresco... Read more... |
