Vault Festival 2018 Preview

Vault Festival 2018 London

Mark Ludmon previews this year’s Vault festival in and around The Vaults in Waterloo, London Our pick of theatre and performance at Vault 2018 Every year, Vault arts festival just gets bigger and bigger. For 2018, more than 300 shows will take place around London’s Waterloo from January 24 to March 18, focused on The Vaults beneath the station but now bringing in new spaces including Waterloo East Theatre. It features comedy, film, live performance and theatre – a lot of theatre in fact, presenting exciting new talent and new writing. We pick out some of the shows that caught our attention. NeverLand Following Vault’s sell-out hit The Great Gatsby last year, The Guild of Misrule and Theatre Deli return with a Peter Pan-inspired new, immersive musical. Dive into a dark and dangerous world of mermaids, rum and glittering pirates. Expect food fights, absinthe bars and soaring live music from a … Read more

What To Watch Out For in 2018 – Paul T Davies

Olivier Theatre at the National

To talk about every show I’m looking forward to in 2018 would extend this column beyond your patience, so I thought I would focus on three different aspects-and throw in a few more! THE DIRECTOR. One of my favourite directors is Emma Rice, who got me back into the Globe theatre after feeling that it had become too staid for my tastes in the years before. Now she is free of any shackles they may have put on her, I’m excited to see her new work, and to welcome back one of her classics. Her new company, Wise Children, is the new company in residence at the Old Vic, London, and the first production will be an adaptation of Angela Carter’s classic novel Wise Children. A story of twins born on the wrong side of the bed sheets to a theatrical knight, its theatricality and storytelling makes it a perfect … Read more

REVIEW: Cirque Du Soleil OVO, Royal Albert Hall ✭✭✭✭✭

Cirque Du Soleil Ovo Review

Douglas Mayo is dazzled by OVO by Cirque Du Soleil at the Royal Albert Hall as once again this talented company make it all look so easy. Cirque Du Soleil OVO Royal Albert Hall 5 Stars Book Now I look forward each and every year to Cirque Du Soleil’s residency at the Royal Albert Hall. Year after year some of the world’s finest circus acts combine with the artistic brilliance of Cirque Du Soleil to reawaken my sense of childish wonder as these incredible performers pull off the seemingly impossible. This year Cirque Du Soleil brings OVO to London. OVO (from the egg) takes the audience into a world full of insects, bugs and all manner of creepy crawlies. OVO’s acts include a remarkable mini army of red ants doing equally remarkable and seemingly impossible tricks with slices of kiwifruit and chunks of mini corn cobbettes, Kyle Cragle’s Dragonfly hand-balancing … Read more

Lin-Manuel Miranda makes small lyric tweaks to Hamilton London

In the run-up to the London opening of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s award-winning musical Hamilton, some cynics wondered if the musical based on early American history would translate for British audiences. Based on the critical and public reception which greeted the show, those fears were unfounded. Hamilton is a resounding critical success and has been greeted with the type of audience reaction most shows can only dream of. In recent days on Twitter, Lin-Manuel revealed that three small lyric tweaks have been made to the libretto of Hamilton in London. The first tweak is in the song “Take a Break“.  In the original libretto Hamilton’s line “Angelica, tell me wife John Adams doesn’t have a real job anyway” has been changed to “Angelica, tell me wife, Vice President isn’t a real job anyway” making the line about the job title and not John Adams himself. “The Room Where It Happens” sung by … Read more

FIRST LOOK: Strangers In Between at Trafalgar Studios

Book tickets for Tommy Murphy's Strangers In Between at Trafalgar Studios 2

We are pleased to bring you these great first look production images by Scott Rylander of Tommy Murphy’s play Strangers In Between which plays at Trafalgar Studios 2 from 12 January to 3 February 2018. Strangers In Between tells the story of Shane, a timid 16 year-old who has fled his rural hometown for the glitz and glamour of Sydney’s King’s Cross, in order to escape his troubled past and attempt to establish an urban family. This coming-of-age, dark comedy looks at the importance of friendship and the highs and lows of growing up gay in modern Australia. Directed by the King’s Head Theatre’s Artistic Director, Adam Spreadbury-Maher, the cast includes Roly Botha as Shane, Dan Hunter as Will and Stephen Connery-Brown as Peter. BOOK TICKETS TO STRANGERS IN BETWEEN

Regional UK Theatre looking forward 2018

NST Studio Theatre City

Mark Ludmon examines the year ahead for regional theatre in 2018. Bolton girl Maxine Peake has made her mark on TV and the London stage but she returns to her roots with her second play, Queens of the Coal Age. Based on the true story of four women in Lancashire during the miners’ strike in the 1980s, it will be at the Royal Exchange in Manchester from 28 June to 21 July. Also at the Royal Exchange, Maxine Peake will star in Sarah Frankcom’s new production of Beckett’s Happy Days from 25 May to 23 June. Other highlights coming up at the Royal Exchange include Julie Hesmondhalgh in Kendall Feaver’s new play The Almighty Sometimes and April De Angelis’s new adaptation of Frankenstein. A new production of Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard directed by Michael Boyd, the former artistic director of the Royal Shakespeare Company, will come to the Royal Exchange … Read more

My 2017 Theatre Highlights – Douglas Mayo

Book now for 42nd Street at Theatre Royal Drury Lane

We asked our review team to nominate their 2017 theatre highlights. Douglas Mayo nominated his favourites. 42nd Street (Theatre Royal Drury Lane) Never did I ever think I would see a production of 42nd Street on stage on the scale that is currently on stage at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane. The cast including Tom Lister, Jasna Ivir, Clare Halse, Stuart Neal and the sublime Sheena Easton would have been more than enough but add Douglas W Schmidt’s incredible set that fully utilised the enormous stage of the Theatre Royal and Roger Kirk’s fabulous costumes and you were all set for an experience unlike any other. I quite honestly had tears of joy streaming down my face throughout. Book tickets for 42nd Street. Hamilton (Victoria Palace Theatre) Hyped to oblivion, it was great to see a show that lived up to the hype. I’ve been listening to the cast album … Read more