REVIEW: Beowulf, Etcetera Theatre ✭✭✭

Beowulf review Etcetera Theatre

Part improvisation, part slick comedy routine, part pantomime, part musical, part physical theatre, part arrant nonsense, this Beowulf is an imaginative comic romp through the tulips that edge alongside and around the footsteps left by vaudeville. It defies categorisation, and not in a bad way.

REVIEW: She Loves Me, Landor Theatre ✭✭✭✭

She Loves Me At The Landor Theatre

McWhir understands the limitations of the Landor intimately and is especially skilled at making the most of those limitations. This production of She Loves Me demonstrates his understanding and ability clearly and deftly. There is excellent musical direction from Iain Vince-Gatt who controls the musical side of proceedings from a keyboard. The stand-out performance here comes from Joshua LeClair, whose Arpad is effervescent, energised, and totally convincing throughout.

REVIEW: Happy Endings, Arcola Theatre ✭

Gillian Kirkpatrick, Karen Archer, Andrea Miller and Thea Beyleveld in Happy Endings at the Arcola Theatre

Gov’s idea – a confrontational musical fantasy dealing with the realities of Cancer, Cancer treatment and human responses to both – is inspired. In the second Act of Happy Endings there are flashes of the truth, pain and insight that Gov, who died of Cancer in 2012, brought to the enterprise.

REVIEW: The Hard Problem, Dorfman Theatre ✭✭

The Hard Problem review Dorfman Theatre

The Hard Problem is populated with unpleasant and unlikeable people spouting difficult scientific jargon in a sea of sentimental and predictable banality. There are a handful of good jokes but a handful is insufficient. The detailed notes in the programme provided more dramatic interest than about 100 minutes of stage time.