REVIEW: Holding The Man, Above The Stag ✭✭✭✭✭
Tim and John’s story continues to resonate with so many people. It can only be hoped that as many people as possible with see this remarkable production and will spread the word further.
Gene David Kirk
REVIEW: Southern Baptist Sissies, Above The Stag ✭✭✭
There’s lots of gentle humour, gentle pathos, gentle social critique, and a gently uplifting ‘message’ to go away with at the end.
REVIEW: Party, Above The Stag ✭✭✭✭✭
Party isn’t a play that involves long complex character studies. It’s a hoot, had me laughing throughout and wanting a return visit. It’s pure fun. It holds up a mirror on ourselves to a simpler time (we would never have admitted that at the time!) and reminds us that friends are everything.
David Dillon’s Party Returns To London
David Dillon’s gay comedy Party returns to London this September for the first time since its original extended run at the Arts Theatre in 1998. Party is set at a gay house party where seven gay friends who play a game called Fact or Fantasy; it’s a bit like Truth Or Dare but even more…revealing. As clothes are shed so too are their inhibitions and secrets in this brotherhood comedy that The Advocate describes as ‘One of the most uplifting and affirming representations of gay life on any stage ever.’ Playwright Dillon says, ‘Party is not about flesh, but celebrates the fact that, as a group, we are positive and honest about our sexuality and free from a lot of the inhibitions and hang ups that exist in other groups.’ Party will be presented at the Above The Stag Theatre from 7 September 2016 in a London version of the … Read more
Casting Announced for Closer To Heaven Return Season
Casting has been announced today for Closer To Heaven, a musical by the Pet Shop Boys and Jonathan Harvey which is returning to the Union Theatre from October 21 to Saturday 28 November 2015 following a sell-out run earlier this year. (Read our review) Set against the backdrop of Soho’s pulsing clubland, Closer to Heaven tells the story of Dave, just off the boat from Ireland and determined to make something of himself. He is offered a bar job at a glitzy London nightclub, where he quickly becomes part of an unconventional family including Billie Trix, a fading rock star of the sixties and mother figure to the club’s habitués – Vic, the club’s owner and a middle-aged gay father and his daughter Shell, who Dave sparks an immediate connection with. But will Dave truly discover himself in London, or will he fall into a labyrinth of excess, false agendas … Read more
Closer To Heaven Returns To Union Theatre
Following its sell-out run at the Union Theatre in April 2015, it has been announced that Closer To Heaven – The Pet Shop Boys musical will play a return season at the venue from 21 October to 28 November 2015. Set against the backdrop of Soho’s pulsing clubland, Closer to Heaven tells the story of Dave, just off the boat from Ireland and determined to make something of himself. He is offered a bar job at a glitzy London nightclub, where he quickly becomes part of an unconventional family including Billie Trix, a fading rock star of the sixties and mother figure to the club’s habitués – Vic, the club’s owner and a middle-aged gay father and his daughter Shell, who Dave sparks an immediate connection with. But will Dave truly discover himself in London, or will he fall into a labyrinth of excess, false agendas and the darker side … Read more
REVIEW: The Sum Of Us, Above The Stag Theatre ✭✭✭✭
One part of the mission of Above the Stag is to remind us of notable plays on gay themes that have not always received the attention they deserved, or whose continuing topicality and universal value needs restating. The Sum of Us by David Stevens falls very much within both these categories, and now receives a welcome fresh production at the launch of the autumn season.
REVIEW: Closer To Heaven, Union Theatre ✭✭✭✭
What makes the musical stand-out is it unashamed gaiety, and I use that word in its modern sense. This is, as Nicholas De Jongh said when the piece premiered, “the first truly gay musical to be written and composed by Englishmen” to reach the West End. It is also essentially youthful, and quite uncompromising in dealing head on with the vagaries and traps of young adulthood: sex, drugs (use and sale), pop music, alcohol, predatory conduct, prostitution, love, survival, sexuality and, most compellingly, the family you create separate from the family into which you are born.
