Stephen Collins Reviews The Best Of 2014

Standing Ovation

2014 – a very good year. It’s often hard at this time of year, when the days are short, the errands before Christmas are many, the things to get done before the holiday season starts in earnest seem unending, and the prospect of another New Year looms dangerously close, to take the time to think about the theatrical highlights of the year that is about to end. But not this year. No. This year there have been so many theatrical highs in London it is difficult to not think about them. And when one is asked to list the “ten best” of the year, it is very hard indeed. So, I won’t do that. Well, not just that. Rather, I am going to mention the plays or musicals or theatrical events or performances which left the most lasting impression, the ones I think about often, the ones which have left … Read more

REVIEW: Into The Woods – The Movie. Released 9th January 2015

Meryl Streep as the Witch in Into The Woods

Anna Kendrick makes a marvellous Cinderella, a precise balance between fairytale character and real human. Her scenes with Blunt are wonderful and, for me anyway, Steps of the Palace is the highlight of the film. Chris Pine is terrific and happily sends himself up mercilessly, and to great comic effect, in Agony. Meryl Streep is, throughout, mesmerising.

Cats: Thoughts From A Long Time Fan

Cats West End London Palladium

This production of Cats, certainly inspired some heated conversations over the weekend, but what it also revived in me was my love of the show itself and it’s place in awakening my love of musicals, a love that I daresay will never leave me. These long-running shows wrote new rules for musicals and continue to do so.

REVIEW: Sikes And Nancy, Trafalgar Studios 2 ✭✭✭

Sikes and Nancy at Trafalgar Studios

Without doubt, Swanton has one of the most impressive and mellifluous voices of anyone under the age of 40 who has set foot on a London stage in recent years. He leaves you with an indelible Fagin, a monstrously brutal Sikes, a scared and discarded Nancy, a cautious but aristocratic Brownlow, and a ghastly, slippery and disgusting Bolter/Claypole.