Month: September 2015

Casting Announced for Closer To Heaven Return Season

News, Off West End
Closer To Heaven by Jonathan Harvey and The Pet Shop Boys at the Union Theatre, London

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

REVIEW: Hamilton Broadway Cast Recording ✭✭✭✭✭

Broadway, Hamilton The Musical, Music, News, Reviews
Hamilton Broadway Cast Recording

I’ve spent the last week listening to the new Broadway cast recording of Hamilton. For those of you who are unaware, Hamilton is Lin-Manuel Miranda’s (In The Heights) latest musical. It played to a critically acclaimed sell-out audience at the Public Theatre in New York (read our review), and has now transferred to the Richard Rodgers Theatre on Broadway, where it has fast become the hottest ticket on Broadway. Hamilton, is the musicalisation of the life of Alexander Hamilton, a founding father of the United States who is responsible for much of the nation’s financial system and the establishment of the United States Coast Guard, amongst other things. It is therefore apt that he is represented on the American $10 note. From the first bars of the opening number, you get a distinct impression that this man was something extraordinary:- “How does a bastard, orphan, son of a whore and … Read more

In The Heights – Rehearsal Images Released

Gallery, News, West End
In The Heights at the King's Cross Theatre

BritishTheatre.com is pleased to be bringing you these first look images of the Into The Heights rehearsal room. Previews for Into The Heights begin this Saturday 3rd October at the King’s Cross Theatre. Into The Heights is being presented by popular demand following its sell-out UK Premiere at Southwark Playhouse in 2014. Reprising their roles following the run at Southwark Playhouse are David Bedella as Kevin, Josie Benson as Camila, Victoria Hamilton-Barritt as Daniela, Sam Mackay as Usnavi, Sarah Naudi as Carla and Eve Polycarpou as Abuela. They are joined by Vas Constanti as Piragua Guy, Jade Ewen as Vanessa, Lily Frazer as Nina, Antoine Murray-Straughan as Graffiti Pete, Joe Aaron Reid as Benny and Cleve September as Sonny. The cast also includes Jocasta Almgill, Courtney-Mae Briggs, Michael Cortez, Gabriela Garcia, Reiss Hinds, Alexandra Sarmiento, Spin and Philippa Stefani. In The Heights is an uplifting and exhilarating journey into Washington … Read more

Glenn Close In Sunset Boulevard – Tickets Now On Sale

News, West End
Book Sunset Boulevard tickets with BritishTheatre.com

Glenn Close is to make her West End theatre debut in a semi-staged concert production of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Sunset Boulevard at the London Colliseum in April 2016. Tickets are now on sale. Based on Billy Wilder’s classic film, Sunset Boulevard originally premiered in London at the Adelphi Theatre in 1993, where it ran for almost four years and played to nearly two million people. It went on to open on Broadway in 1994 to what was then, the biggest advance in Broadway history, $37.5million. Glenn Close will reprise her role as Norma Desmond, for which she has previously won a Tony Award, a Drama Desk Award, a Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award and a Dramalogue Award for the Broadway production directed by Trevor Nunn. In her mansion on Sunset Boulevard, faded, silent-screen goddess, Norma Desmond, lives in a fantasy world. Impoverished screen writer, Joe Gillis, on the run … Read more

REVIEW: Martyr, Unicorn Theatre ✭✭✭

Off West End, Reviews
Martyr, Unicorn Theatre

This is an unsettling rather than disturbing night at the theatre that raises more questions than it can readily answer, and part of trouble lies in the way those questions are posed. However, this is terrain where few convincing pathways are currently discernible and where few playwrights have dared to tread at all. The subject and theme still awaits its Voltaire, its Shaw or even perhaps its David Hare.

REVIEW: Jane Eyre, National Theatre ✭✭✭✭

Reviews, West End
Read the Jane Eyre, National Theatre review on BritishTheatre.com

This is a fully compelling night at the theatre. You do not feel the time dragging and can only be impressed at the way the cast finds new meanings in material that we all think we know backwards. This is a true ensemble production with scope for individuals to shine and the whole to resonate with something greater than their individual contributions too. It impressed hugely, made me laugh often, but in the second half rarely touched me as it should.

Strictly Come Dancing Arena Tour 2016

Dance, Events, News, Touring
Strictly Come Dancing Arena Tour 2016

We are pleased to be bringing you ticketing information for the Strictly Come Dancing Arena Tour 2016. It’s time to dust off the glitterballs and polish the judges’ paddles, as the Strictly Come Dancing Live Tour is back and promises to be more thrilling than ever before! The fearsome threesome themselves, Len Goodman, Craig Revel Horwood and Bruno Tonioli will be reunited for the 2016 tour so waltz into the new year with a spring in your step and join us for one of the highlights of the showbiz calendar! Many of your much-loved celebrity dancers and their professional partners will reunite on a supersized ballroom floor, competing for your votes in the hope of lifting the famous glitterball trophy. With thrilling dancing and acrobatics; breathtaking costumes; amazing choreography and incredible live music from the fabulous Strictly band, this is an entertainment extravaganza not to be missed. Book your tickets … Read more

REVIEW: Pomona, National Theatre ✭✭

Reviews, West End
Pomona, National Theatre

I willing to concede that I have may have missed a great deal, and certainly the mainly youngish audience loved it on press night; but to me this was ultimately a preposterous mish-mash of possibilities that never gelled. The Emperor never deigned to wear any clothes for long enough for us to care about any of the characters or gain a sense of thrill or sustained absorption from the situations evoked.