Brighton Year-Round
Years: 2024 2023 2022 2021 2020 2019
Brighton Year-Round 2024
What brings this musical home is the drawing-together of threads that hang loose in Act One. And finally you believe in a story that doesn’t flinch from darkness and sings its distress. Thoroughly enjoyable.
In Ryan Kopel and Lauren Conroy two future stars are born within a first-rate cast led by the exquisitely moving Alice Fearns; and Kopel with such a range is someone whose next role will probably surprise even him. Two and half hours blaze by like a first date. Outstanding.
For Entertainment Purposes Only
Philip Ayckbourn’s songs are the heart of this collection. It’d be thrilling to see a full musical here; and staged in London. Enthusiastically recommended, there’s gems, with more of Ayckbourn’s elegiac sensibility than I’ve ever seen. More of this please.
Now That’s What I Call a Musical
The cast grab this by the scruff of its shoulder pads and make us love them. A must-see.
You’re not going to see anything this special in most (if any) revivals, however luxury-cast. In stripping-back, then regrowing a complete ensemble with even lesser songs, this is the most complete Oliver! we’re likely to see.
In short, a fabulous example of British talent, now endangered, bringing quadruple threat to a magnificent production. Not all such mainstream shows on tour even approach outstanding, but this truly is.
