Mark Ludmon 
This is an accomplished show, capturing the spirit and social comedy of Austen with added humour from the multiple casting. It has come to the Jermyn Street Theatre at the end of a successful UK tour.
While the musical inevitably simplifies complex issues, it seamlessly integrates some of the debate about Britain’s attitudes towards refugees and asylum seekers. With these issues as relevant today as they were when the show premiered in 2012, Glasgow Girls is a powerful, compelling plea for seeing refugees as people rather than just faceless statistics.
Directed by Claire Coaché, Scorched is a powerful play that captures the horror of war and the disorientation of dementia.
It starts slowly but, through the strength of Llewelyn-Williams’ performance and writing, you are soon gripped by his tale as it builds in excitement, mixing heart-breaking tragedy with uplifting hope about human endurance. Directed by Joshua Richards, it is a beautifully crafted show that casts a spell that stays with you long after it is over.
With the audience donning party hats and at times encouraged to participate, it is an entertaining show that slips in plenty of sharp insights into British politics and society.
Social commentary aside, RAZ takes us on an entertaining rollercoaster of a ride through the joys, frustrations and heartache of the kind of night-out that happens every weekend not just in Lancashire but in towns and cities around Britain.
Love Birds is a real hoot but, at 60 minutes, it is clearly a work in progress, squeezing in well over a dozen different songs while giving us just the skeleton of the plot and characters. After its premiere at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, it will be interesting to see how Robbie Sherman and his team develop the show and spread its wings.
Hendrick’s Gin is a familiar name on the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, but this year it returned with a theatrical experience called the Emporium of Sensorial Submersion, staged across three floors of a Georgian Grade A-listed townhouse in George Street. Part of the Fringe programme with a cast of actors, it is a sensory experience that is illuminating, entertaining and often bewildering.
