West End
The Comeback, Noël Coward Theatre review - frantic farce with touches of vaudevilleMonday, 14 December 2020
Ben Ashenden and Alex Owen together form The Pin, a sketch duo who have won much critical acclaim and full houses in the Edinburgh Fringe shows. They have also added a huge social media following in 2020 with their lockdown skits spoofing the new... Read more... |
Album: Barbara Dickson - Time is Going FasterSaturday, 31 October 2020
It’s 45 years since the West End success of John, Paul, George, Ringo… and Bert put a young Scottish folkie named Barbara Dickson on the map, launching a career that brought richly-deserved success on stage and screen, as well as in music. She’s... Read more... |
Adam Kay, Apollo Theatre review - former medic tells tales from NHS front lineFriday, 23 October 2020
What a pleasure it was to step inside a West End theatre again, and what a different experience it was – temperature checks at the door, a one-way system through to the seats and an app to order drinks. While markedly smaller audiences are terrible... Read more... |
'She was Paris': RIP Zizi Jeanmaire (1924-2020)Wednesday, 22 July 2020
"You talk like Marlene Dietrich, you dance like Zizi Jeanmaire, your clothes are all made by Balmain, and there’s diamonds and pearls in your hair…" . Peter Sarstedt may have been a one-hit wonder, but his 1969 pop song, "Where do you go to (my... Read more... |
The Last Five Years, The Other Palace Digital review - socially distanced heartbreakFriday, 26 June 2020
A musical featuring two people who are physically separated? Jason Robert Brown’s work is a shutdown natural – as this new digital theatre version demonstrates. Lauren Samuels and Danny Becker, who play doomed lovers Cathy and Jamie, recorded their... Read more... |
Cats, The Shows Must Go On review - a purr-fectly theatrical experienceSaturday, 16 May 2020
Cats is, declares composer Andrew Lloyd Webber, a show that doesn’t really have a story, but was beloved on stage because it’s “the ultimate theatrical experience”. That’s the point which Tom Hooper’s grotesque, nightmarish movie adaptation so... Read more... |
Theatre Lockdown Special 5: A solo show for the ages, Ibsen refreshed, and yet more frolicsome catsThursday, 14 May 2020
No one can accuse the gods of streaming of failing to cast a wide net. That's even more so with an array of streaming opportunities over the next week that ranges from Off West End Ibsen given a second chance to shine to an online encounter with,... Read more... |
Theatre Lockdown Special 1: Starry podcasts, late-career Shakespeare, a celebrity basement - and moreThursday, 16 April 2020
The lockdown has been extended, but here's the good news: each week whereby we are shut inside seems to bring with it ever-enticing arrays of theatre from across the spectrum, from online cabarets to freshly conceived podcasts and all manner of... Read more... |
Sondheim at 90 Songs: 1 - 'I'm Still Here'Monday, 23 March 2020
Surely there’s never been a more apt time for Sondheim’s great cry of defiance? “I’m Still Here” is sung by showgirl-turned-actress Carlotta in Follies (1971) – added during the Boston try-out in place of “Can That Boy Foxtrot”. Loosely... Read more... |
On Blueberry Hill, Trafalgar Studios review - superb acting, specious plotThursday, 12 March 2020
Some wondrous acting is sacrificed on the altar of an increasingly wonky plot in On Blueberry Hill, the first play in 10 years from Sebastian Barry, the Irish playwright and novelist whose onetime Royal Court entry The Steward of Christendom... Read more... |
Pretty Woman: The Musical, Piccadilly Theatre review - not so pretty, actuallyTuesday, 03 March 2020
It’s not so much that Pretty Woman: The Musical isn’t much good, which it isn’t. More to the point is that this West End replica of the recent Broadway musical of the 1990 film feels utterly superfluous: a gloss on a popular romcom that... Read more... |
The Prince of Egypt, Dominion Theatre review - Moses musical goes big and broadWednesday, 26 February 2020
The theatre gods rained down not fire and pestilence, but a 45-minute technical delay on opening night of this substantially revised musical – a stage adaptation of the 1998 DreamWorks animated movie. But nothing could entirely halt this juggernaut... Read more... |
