musicals
Miss Saigon, Prince Edward TheatreThursday, 22 May 2014
The heat is on in Saigon, and 25 years after its world premiere, Cameron Mackintosh has just turned up the thermostat. Boublil and Schönberg's celebrated take on Puccini's Madam Butterfly has always been my favourite of their collaborations (though... Read more... |
The Pajama Game, Shaftesbury TheatreWednesday, 14 May 2014
On the Richter scale of catchiness Richard Adler and Jerry Ross’s songs for The Pajama Game are right up there. Quite who did what in their brief but shining songwriting partnership was never entirely clear, though Adler claimed supremacy in the... Read more... |
Sunny Afternoon, Hampstead TheatreFriday, 02 May 2014
The Kinks’ music deserves more than another jukebox musical. Joe Penhall has instead collaborated with Ray Davies on a show about the pain and compromise musicians go through to fill those jukeboxes. Most of The Kinks’ biggest hits are here... Read more... |
theartsdesk in Sydney: Strictly Ballroom's backWednesday, 16 April 2014
"Everyone is beautiful when they dance,” oozes the ballroom MC in the midst of a competition that reveals just how un-beautiful terpsichorean people can be when seriously challenged by other dancers, or by anyone radical enough to try to dance to a... Read more... |
The Beautiful Game, Union TheatreThursday, 10 April 2014
Andrew Lloyd Webber and Ben Elton's musical was first seen in the West End in 2000, where it received mixed reviews and ran for just under a year. In 2009-10, they reworked the show for productions in Canada and South Africa under the title The Boys... Read more... |
Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, Savoy TheatreThursday, 03 April 2014
The “fantasy” Riviera conjured by designer Peter McKintosh for the West End premiere of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels - the Musical is pretty much an extension of the Savoy Theatre’s shining Art Deco auditorium, its sleek angular segments gliding into... Read more... |
I Can't Sing!, London PalladiumThursday, 27 March 2014
The names have been changed to protect the guilty but half the fun of I Can’t Sing! - the so-called X-Factor musical - lies in the relentless spoofing of a show we love to hate and a format so unremittingly predictable that its contestants, judges,... Read more... |
Funny FaceSaturday, 01 March 2014
For those who haven't seen it, the funny face of the title belongs to Audrey Hepburn. As preposterous as that seems for someone so iconically gorgeous and although when others fail to notice her beauty it seems insane, Hepburn was famously insecure... Read more... |
The A-Z of Mrs P, Southwark PlayhouseThursday, 27 February 2014
The most ambitious musicals spring from the most unlikely sources – you need go no further than Stephen Sondheim to establish that – but turning those musicals from novelty into living, breathing, involving experiences requires very special talent.... Read more... |
HMS Pinafore, Hackney EmpireMonday, 17 February 2014
Showboys will be boys – gym-bunny sailors, in this instance – as well as sisters, cousins, aunts, captain’s daughters and bumboat women. We know the ropes by now for Sasha Regan’s all-male Gilbert and Sullivan: a loving attempt to recreate, she says... Read more... |
Putting It Together, St James TheatreThursday, 16 January 2014
“God,” wrote Stephen Sondheim, “is in the details.” Of course, he didn’t actually coin the phrase but throughout his published collections of lyrics he cites it as one of his three guiding principles. But to witness detail you need to be up close.... Read more... |
Theatre: Top 10 of 2013Sunday, 29 December 2013
Playgoers could be forgiven for thinking that they were seeing double during much of 2013. No sooner had you sat through Ian Rickson's dazzling revival of Old Times once before you returned again to watch its peerless pair of actresses, Kristin... Read more... |
