Theatre
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... |
United Queendom, Kensington Palace review - rollicking royal taleTuesday, 03 March 2020
Les Enfants Terribles is the theatre company behind several interesting immersive projects, including Alice's Adventures Underground and Inside Pussy Riot. Now it has joined forces with Historic Royal Palaces to tell the story of two women integral... Read more... |
Sinners, Playground Theatre review - intimacy but also fearSaturday, 29 February 2020
Layla is trapped in a pit of sand up to her shoulders, with a shroud over her head and piles of rocks surrounding her. On steps Nur, who has been tasked with arranging the rocks. The two were engaged in an adulterous affair, and he must begin the... Read more... |
Women Beware Women, Shakespeare's Globe, review – wittily toxic upgrade of a Jacobean tragedyFriday, 28 February 2020
This raunchy, gleefully cynical production takes one of Thomas Middleton’s most famous tragedies and turns it into a Netflix-worthy dark comedy. Where the themes of incest, betrayal, cougar-action and multiple murder would be spun out over several... Read more... |
First Person: Hassan Abdulrazzak on the real-life drama behind American deportation to the UKWednesday, 26 February 2020
You are at a party having a good time when someone gives you a glass of champagne. You take one and then another and soon the party is over. You get in the car to go home and are driving along when you see a police car in the rearview mirror: how... 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... |
Be More Chill, The Other Palace review - more exhausting than enlighteningMonday, 24 February 2020
This latest musical theatre exercise in “geek chic” has been an American phenomenon: a show propelled by social media that developed a rabid fan base taking it all the way to Broadway last year. And here Be More Chill now is in London at The Other... Read more... |
A Number, Bridge Theatre review - a dream team dazzles anewFriday, 21 February 2020
There are any number of ways to perform A Number, Caryl Churchill’s bleak and beautiful play about a father and three of who knows how many of his genetically cloned sons. Since it first opened at the Royal Court in 2002, this hourlong two-hander... Read more... |
Pass Over, Kiln Theatre review - fierce critique of racist brutalityThursday, 20 February 2020
The Black Lives Matter movement is such an important international protest that it is odd how few contemporary plays even mention it. Since the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter has been around since 2013, following the acquittal of George Zimmerman who... Read more... |
La Cage aux Folles [The Play], Park Theatre review - half-cock farceThursday, 20 February 2020
Not the musical then, worst luck. How timely it would have been to mark Jerry Herman's passing with a celebration of a great achievement. Just how brilliantly the pathos and panache of his score lift Jean Poiret's long-running 1970s farce about a... Read more... |
The Best Plays in LondonWednesday, 19 February 2020
London is the theatre capital of the world, with more than 50 playhouses offering theatrical entertainment. From the mighty National Theatre to the West End, the small powerhouses of the Donmar Warehouse and the Almeida and out to the fringe... Read more... |
Upstart Crow, Gielgud Theatre review - terrific Shakespeare spoofTuesday, 18 February 2020
What joy it is to welcome this offshoot of the television series to the West End stage – complete with several of that show's cast, plus a few new additions. Ben Elton has fashioned an original story that picks up in 1605, a decade after where the... Read more... |
