REVIEW: When Midnight Strikes, Drayton Arms Pub Theatre ✭✭✭

When Midnight Strikes at Drayton Arms

When Midnight Strikes The Drayton Arms Pub Theatre 24th October 2017 Book Tickets Charles Miller and Kevin Hammonds are one of this country’s most prolific and inventive musical writing teams, and yet they are still comparatively little known by the general public.  One wonders why this is so: their songs are highly crafted, intensely melodic and memorable.  Surely, they should make more of an impact.  Over many years, their work has been commissioned by leading drama schools, and shows have been produced to fit the needs of companies wanting to produce varied stories with lots of parts, each well represented with solo material as well as a good mixture of duets, trios, quartets, ensembles and choruses. It is, of course, very difficult to predict what will seize the public imagination, but in the case of this work, the answer may lie in the choice of story and the nature of … Read more

Fanny And Stella at Above The Stag

Fanny and Stella at Above The Stage in London

Daring to be different may well be considered acceptable in modern times but spare a thought for Ernest Boulton and Frederick Park, two cross dressers in Victorian England. Showy and theatrical on and off the stage, which they so loved, Fanny and Stella were arrested at The Strand Theatre in 1870. They appeared in court next morning still in their evening gowns, and the trial for homosexual offences of this judge’s son and a bank clerk was the sensation of the age, especially when Boulton’s respectable and accepting mother, Mary Ann, took the stand. Their ultimate acquittal is all the more fascinating when compared to Oscar Wilde’s imprisonment less than 30 years later. Fanny and Stella: The Shocking True Story makes it’s debut at the Above The Stage Theatre, London’s only full time professional LGBT theatre on 13 May running until June 14,2015. This new play with original music has … Read more