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.
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
From the moment Alastair Brookshaw’s astonishing S.L. Jacobowsky, alone on stage, starts the narrative running, the audience is hooked, completely aware that Southerland has created something quite remarkable in the tiny Finborough Theatre space, and absolutely determined not to interrupt a second of it. An absolute, unqualified, treat.
