Review: Odyssey: A Heroic Pantomime
This compact one hour 45 show must run again. The most inventive, best-written and possibly best-sung panto in Town.
Genre: Musical Theatre
Review: Oh What a Lovely War
Musically directed by Ellie Verkerk the six-strong cast play instruments throughout. They’re a phenomenal team, singing beautifully a capella or in solo. With six young actors mostly fresh out of drama school absolutely at the top of their first game, we’re treated to acting both hungry to prove and yet touched by the world they’ve entered. This is an outstanding production.
Review: Something Rotten
If the proof is in the pudding (or the omelette, if you’ve seen the show), this production is proof of what can happen when community theatre is given the support and resources that allow people to showcase their innate creativity and talents.
Review: Greatest Days
It’s a one-stop night out to spot upcoming with established talent. Everything from costume-change to curtain-call is a kaleidoscope.
Review: Blood Brothers
This reinvigorated classic has overwhelming impact: as story, as lyric fable, as terrible moral for these distracted times.
Review: This Way For The Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen
Based on the writing of poet Tadeusz Borowski and the paintings of Arnold Daghani This Way For The Gas bears explosive witness to shape the pulse of that post-Holocaust world. Bill Smith, Angi Mariano and their colleagues have wrought an enormous service. In the last great reprise of 'Never' we realise we're seeing the finale of an emerging masterpiece.
Review: An Afternoon With Anton Du Beke and Friends
Du Beke would have easily been able to present a polished, over-the-top extravaganza to rival the Ziegfeld Follies, but this being the Fringe, he gave us an intimate, scrappy hour that provided the perfect tonic for a rainy day in the last week of the festival.
Review: Brain Hemingway
A blocked playwright with a looming deadline is haunted by the subject of her last failed show: Ernest Hemingway.
Review: After This Plane Has Landed
New musical drama based on the harrowing story of kidnapped British journalist John McCarthy and Jill Morell's relentless campaigning for his freedom.
Review: Chriskirkpatrickmas: A Boy Band Christmas Musical
Even the Grinch Would Enjoy This Blast From the Recent Past
Review: Potty the Plant – A New Dark Comedy Musical
A light hearted pseudo-horror story with a few jibes at current affairs
Review: Alan Turing : A Musical Biography
Competent biography portraying the highlights of Alan Turing's life, from school to grave, with songs
Review: Bowjangles: Dracula in Space
The stakes are high, as a talented string quartet encounter Dracula, with tremendously entertaining shenanigans aplenty
Review: A Good Panto Die Hard
The alchemy required to create this panto/action/comedy/musical, and get away with it, should not be underestimated.
Review: La Petite Gerda
Imaginative retelling of Snow Queen story with beautifully sung songs, excellent acting and creative storytelling.
Review: Oscar at the Crown
An immersive neon extravaganza that brings us Oscar Wilde, not as we know him and not as we ought to either.
Review: Too Big for Her Britches
Audience members were laughing, crying, then returned to laughing again
Review: The Sound of Music
This is a top, not just first-rate cast; a riveting, rethought revival. There’s not a weak link - and some vocal surprises. The end is almost unbearably moving. Some still come over mountains as here, some in small boats. You might not feel the same about something you thought you knew. An outstanding revival.
Review: Then, Now and Next
The Book and Lyrics are peerless for this scale, or indeed anywhere: and we can only look forward to much more from Orton and Robyns. This is a heart-rending, heart-warming piece. Laughter certainly, tears, yes those too. The must-see musical of the summer.
Review: Tony!
There’s no doubt this is an offbeat, brilliant, rude, absolutely necessary musical. Its acid test will come from younger Millennials and Zoomers. But then that’s the point: the winners rewrite history. History has just struck back, and it’s a blast.
Review: Waldo’s Circus of Magic and Terror
Dazzling spectacles and poignant moments against a background of Nazi oppression
Review: Tony!
There’s no doubt this is an offbeat, brilliant, rude, absolutely necessary musical. Its acid test will come from younger Millennials and Zoomers. But then that’s the point: the winners rewrite history. History has just struck back, and it’s a blast.
Review: How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying
This is certainly the best attempt yet to revive this musical with a new accent, and the way to see this musical. With such a company, see it anyway. It’ll prod you with questions and send you singing for answers.
Review: Idle Women
Musical theatre that motors along the canals of England with women at its heart and helm.
Review: Sugar Coat
Essential theatre. Five singer-actors, memorably punchy music, witty and heartbreaking – most of all groundbreaking – storytelling. 90 minutes of this and you’ll know just what to do with the patriarchy.
Review: Heathers
Rethought, rejigged, bright with humour and shadowed with plangency, this is the Heathers we’re meant to have
Review: Fisherman’s Friends: The Musical
A glorious night out, a wonderful cast and in Shahmir a mesmerising star in the making.
Review: A Mother’s Song
An incredible musical feat of centuries of connection made through song, motherhood and a dazzling sense of bridging continents and time with ballads.
Review: The Emergence Festival
A fascinating evening of well-considered works that augur well for many with a real future in the arts.
Review: Rocky Horror Show
The most lucid-voiced Rocky I’ve seen and on balance strongest cast for a long time. Two great reasons to return, or adventure for your first awakening on Planet Transexual.
Review: From Here to Eternity
Grabs you from the towards the close of Act One and doesn’t let go: from here to curtain we’re in heart-stopping eternity.
Review: Cher A New Musical
See it here first before you feel compelled to travel to pay West End prices.
Review: A Wilde Life
Oscar Wilde is in a bar in Paris and wants to talk about himself - what could possibly go wrong?
Review: North Star (What I Listed to Instead of My Intuition)
North Star was heartfelt, uplifting, and enjoyable at times.
Review: Caligari
a 1920's silent film about power and illusion retold by a talented young company of musician/actors
Review: Fabulett 1933
Camp and tender musical portrayal of life for queers in 1933 Berlin through the forced closing of the decadent Fabulett club.
Review: Little Git
A musical story of everyday disappointment, told by two musicians, reaching a significant age with equally significant decisions to be made.
Review: Waitress
Halfpenny raises soaring music theatre, an ounce of gold in the throat and stars six inches above it.
Review: The Rise and Fall of Little Voice
The Rise and Fall of Little Voice sings out of damage into heartbreak and redemption. Those who don’t know the play or its outcome should see this, even those who have.
Review: The Paradis Files
Not so much an event as a concentration of Errollyn Wallen’s genius celebrating the life of blind composer Maria Theresia van Paradis, in Graeae’s world-class production
Review: Beautiful
Outstanding, and outstandingly transferred as a tour that brings its stature with it.
Review: Heathers
Sometimes the dark is light enough. Meanwhile enjoy an exceptional cast and talent you’ll long to see again in something finer.
Review: Hamilton and Me: An Actor’s Journal
In rapid, elegant, idiomatically kerned language, Giles Terera proves himself a superb expositor of where it happens.
Review: Tom Lehrer
Another sovereign tribute. Stefan Bednarczyk brings Tom Lehrer swaggering out of retirement.
Review: Bette: Bathhouse to Broadway!
One of the most musically satisfying, funny, filthy and inclusive tribute acts of its kind.
Review: Glenda and Rita Live at The Rialto
Alexander Joseph and Ro Robertson team return in triumph.
Review: Sitting Pretty
When you see this show return, it’ll be outstanding, and in the frame for awards.
Review: Gilbert and Sullivan’s Improbable New Musical: … and Helen
Comedy musical, a slice of G&S history through parody and song - uplifting!
Review: I Wish My Life Were Like a Musical
Flawless, a stunning pocket-sized musical you really must see.
Review: Living Newspaper #7
Like all the Royal Court’s Living Newspaper series, we need this. Watch a group of young dramatists take on the future
Review: Living Newspaper #6
Like all the Royal Court’s Living Newspaper series, we need this. Watch what this does with the future
Review: Living Newspaper #5
Like all the Royal Court’s Living Newspaper series, we need this. Watch.
Review: Living Newspaper #3 Royal Court Theatre
Hot off Sloane Square a team of writers, actors and creatives twist the news to truth
Review: Before After
A pristine, heartwarming Valentine of a musical, starring a pair of real-life lovers, it deserves a real-life run
Review: The Official Dick Whittington – A Pantomime for 2020
It’s a joyous confection out of thin lockdown.
Review: Being Posy
A solo performance which is written large in visible ink and all the more truthful for it.
Review: Beauty and the Beast
Nothing so convincing has been done with this legend. It deserves many revivals.
Review: The Sound of Music
Phenomenal singing all round. A more than solid recommendation for that alone.
Review: Andrew Lloyd-Webber 50th Birthday Live from the Royal Albert Hall, 1998
The great discovery was the multi-roling Marcus Lovett, sexy and lethal, able to attack several roles and convince you he was born for them, even into them.
Review: The Phantom of the Opera
The Albert Hall’s sovereign production, unlikely to be surpassed particularly with the special encore.
Review: Joseph And The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat
A salutary reminder of how a great musical talent and collaboration started
Review: We Are In Time
A heart jumping exploration of transplants with a majesty of the music at its heart and a subtle theatricality expanding it all
Review: Blood Brothers
The blend of definitive and new cast members in a recent classic has overwhelming impact: as story, as lyric fable, as terrible moral for these distracted times.
Review: Priscilla, Queen of the Desert
The three lead actors, divas and a superb cast give this production its beating pink heart.
