Barry Gibb was at the considerable peak of his era-defining songwriting powers when he provided the song that played over the opening titles of the iconic 1978 film, so it's a wise decision by director, Nikolai Foster, to go straight into "Grease is the Word" after a brief prologue.The energetic dancing by the boys and girls of Rydell High, the strength of the harmonies and the warm familiarity of the tune builds two bridges – one back to the movie, the other across the fourth wall. For all its flaws, this new production recognises that, perhaps in big musicals more than any other genre Read more ...

One of the more irritating memes (it’s a competitive field, I know) is the “Name a more iconic couple” appearing over a photo of Posh and Becks, or Harry and Megan, or Leo and whoever. I’ve always been tempted to close the discussion down with a photo of Bonnie and Clyde, because couples do not come more iconic than they are. So it’s a surprise to discover that Nick Winston’s production is the first ever musical dedicated to them in the West End, reviving a show that was in and out of Broadway ten years ago quicker than the Barrow gang were in and out of a Wells Fargo bank. Since then, Read more ...

Zorro (what a name!) is back, swashing and buckling his way into the West End, 13 years after he left and now not the only one wearing a mask. He’s also an entertainer turned political leader, inspiring his people to resist an evil martinet. Well, that sort of thing is back in fashion too.Stephen Clark and Helen Edmundson’s story sets up two brothers in the Spanish outpost of Los Angeles (it’s 1805) with one, Diego – younger, the favourite – sent to Barcelona to learn the skills he’ll need to lead the pueblo when his father dies, and the other, Ramón – older, resentful – staying in California Read more ...

West Side Story’s cinema release crashed into Omicron and never recovered. Maybe Ariana DeBose’s Oscar will help the world wake up to this Spielberg masterpiece, which definitively betters 1961’s Robert Wise/Jerome Robbins version.Spielberg loves West Side Story as much as its Romeo and Juliet, Tony and María, love each other. The material is part of his childhood, as personal as upcoming semi-memoir The Fabelmans. A film about romantic transcendence that ultimately falls to earth, this is one of his most exuberant and serious works, propelled by Leonard Bernstein’s music, ironised by Stephen Read more ...

Musicals don't get madder than Anyone Can Whistle, the 1964 Broadway flop from onetime West Side Story and Gypsy collaborators Stephen Sondheim and Arthur Laurents which makes history of sorts at Southwark Playhouse as the first Sondheim show to be revived since his death last year, age 91. What this trailblazing talent never short of an opinion might make of Georgie Rankcom's production is anyone's guess, though I suspect he would admire a sizeably non-binary set of artists gathered on a show about otherness and non-conformity.I for one began proceedings with a grin on my face, prompted Read more ...

People often ask how long a play takes to make its way out of you. And it’s always a valid question because no matter how beautiful, soft, joyful, or short a play is, there is a wrestling match that takes place between the idea lodging itself somewhere in you, and it turning into words that actors can have fun getting to know. With Black Love, opening this week at the Kiln Theatre, that journey from the story embedding itself to a rehearsal script took almost seven years.When I was first commissioned in 2019 to write a play for Paines Plough, I had no idea what it was I wanted to write. Or Read more ...

We open on “Seventeen is Swell”, the antithesis of Janis Ian’s 70s angsty anthem, “At Seventeen”. Megan is living it large as the cheerleader’s leader with her football captain boyfriend, two loving if strict parents and a golden future of all-American domestic bliss ahead. In short, she has all her pom poms in a row.Well, except she doesn’t really enjoy the more intimate moments with the dim jock, Jared; she has pin-ups of Eva Herzigová where Johnny Depp should be; and she’s, horror upon horrors, a vegetarian! In the kind of Midwest town where you might expect Louis Theroux to turn up to Read more ...

Steven (David Ames) is having a birthday party. He’s invited his closest friends – two of whom have recently started dating their personal trainer, Steve – and his partner, of course: Stephen (Joe Aaron Reid). Their eight-year-old son, Stevie, is being babysat by his grandma. Even the handsome Argentine waiter (Nico Conde) is called Esteban.As homages to Stephen Sondheim go, Steve, a play by Mark Gerrard previously seen Off Broadway and now inaugurating the Seven Dials Playhouse, is pretty obvious.Andrew Keates’ direction and Lee Newby’s set design make great use of the theatre Read more ...

Wind the clock back 45 years and the Big Apple was bankrupt, the lights had gone out and many native New Yorkers were packing their bags. Gangs controlled whole neighbourhoods, drugs were the currency of choice and, for a kid with no college, prospects were strictly limited. The movie Saturday Night Fever captured this social decay, illustrating the crisis of confidence that suffused so many big Western cities.In faraway England, the nihilism of punk was leaning into the "no future" narrative, but suddenly, here over the ocean was Tony Manero, this strutting master of the universe, Read more ...

One of the many theatrical casualties of Omicron in December was the official UK opening of Moulin Rouge!, the stage version of Baz Luhrmann’s indelible 2001 film that has already racked up 10 Tony Awards for its 2019 Broadway production (albeit in a depleted season). Thankfully, the show is now back at full strength, and, if anything, its explosion of song, colour and eye-popping spectacle is even more welcome during these grey January days.Once again, we’re entering the fantasy that is the Moulin Rouge nightclub in fin de siècle Paris, where the show’s star, courtesan Satine (Liisi Read more ...

There's a lot of True Crime stuff about, so it's hardly a surprise to see Stephen Dolginoff's 2003 off-Broadway musical back on the London stage, a West End venue for the Hope Theatre's award-winning 2019 production. Whether one needs to see a pair of charismatic child killers given a platform to explain their crimes while the victim, Bobby Franks, is merely a name, his face as absent as it was after the acid was poured all over it – well, you can make your own judgement about that.A serious point maybe, but this is a serious show, the intensity of the two men's relationship enhanced by the Read more ...

There was no live theatre at the start of 2021, just a return to the world of virtual performance and streaming to which we had become well accustomed, and very quickly, too. So imagine the collective surprise come the start of this month as show after show, venue after venue, ceased performance or curtailed operations, however temporarily. Hex, Force Majeure and Moulin Rouge were three prominent end-of-year openings to push their press nights into 2022, a year shrouded as I write this by Omicron-prompted uncertainty. All one can do, and hardly for the first time these days, is hope that Read more ...