The musical performances in Anyone Can Whistle will please people who like brilliantly written songs, and they will fire the imagination of anyone who hears them to imagine another, better, story to tell around them.
Residents of Colchester are lucky to have on their doorsteps a production that punches above its regional theatre weight, and lovers of the musical would do well to travel and see it. I urge you all to attend the tale of this Sweeney Todd!
Following an acclaimed season in New York, ground breaking theatre company Fiasco will bring their production of Into The Woods by Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine to the Menier Chocolate Factory this summer. Using ten actors, multiple musical instruments and boundless imagination, this fairytale classic is reimagined as never before. This production, which received the 2015 Lucille Lortel Award for Best Revival, will include the original US cast. Made into a successful Disney film starring Meryl Streep, Emily Blunt, Johnny Depp and James Corden, the score features timeless songs including Children Will Listen and No One Is Alone. Into The Woods will run at the Menier Chocolate Factory from 1 July to 17 September 2016. Read our review of Fiasco’s Into The Woods on Broadway BOOK NOW FOR INTO THE WOODS
Stephen Sondheim is, without question, one of the greatest living lyricists, and his contributions to musical theatre will be revered for decades to come. Sadly, Road Show is not one of his finer efforts, although The Union Theatre’s inventive and solidly performed production makes for an enjoyable night at the theatre, if you leave your disbelief at the door.
The Union Theatre and The Phil Willmott Company have announced a double bill to be staged at the Union Theatre in early 2016. The season will include the UK professional premiere of Brecht’s Fear And Misery Of The Third Reich, Stephen Sondheim’s Road Show and an Autumn transfer of Queen Lear by Shakespeare from the Union Theatre to the Tristan Bates Theatre. Fear and Misery In The Third Reich is a powerful, tragic and surprisingly funny play by Germany’s most influential playwright which shows people just like us, facing a tide of seemingly unstoppable evil. Brecht asks us to consider how we’d react if (or when) fanaticism were to unexpectedly grip our cosy world. In an interlinked series of snap shots from Hitler’s Germany children inform on parents, justice becomes a joke, old loyalties mean nothing and mere survival demands ruthless cunning. The double bill also sees the first UK … Read more
We asked each of our reviewers to nominate their favourite show of 2015. Danny Coleman-Cooke was quick with his reponse – Sweeney Todd by Tooting Arts Club with Jeremy Secomb and Sionhan McCarthy. Sweeney Todd was a spell-binding production that remained in my head for days afterwards. An eerie and perfectly chosen venue combined with a first-class cast and some highly intelligent staging. The most intimate and engaging production I’ve ever seen that rightly got a standing ovation afterwards. It was so good that even Sondheim gave it rave reviews! The show was transferred to a recreation of Harrington’s Pie And Mash Shop on Shaftesbury Avenue with the help of Cameron Mackintosh. See choices from Tim Hochstrasser and Douglas Mayo
There was a charming mix of reverence and irreverence as well, making the audience feel specially entertained and complicit with the in-jokes. The warm up prelude, People Who Like Sondheim (performed with zing by Kit and McConnel) was good fun and the duo appeared throughout as a kind of Sondheim Statler and Waldorf with witty and barbed repartee. In the second Act though, one of the unarguable surprise sensations of the evening was a five minute romp through 33 Sondheim compositions, “Ladies and gentlemen may we have your attention please…” presented with real style and panache by Martin Milnes and Dominic Ferris. These cabaret contributions provided some much needed innovative content.
Side by Side by Sondheim benefits from some superb material and a rock solid cast. It’s a warm and friendly production, perfect for a gloomy September night.
