REVIEW: Noël Coward’s Christmas Spirits, St James Studio ✭✭✭

Charlotte Wakefield, Stefan Bednarczyk and Issy Van Randwyck. Photo: Mark Douet

Hutchinson has produced an unusual Christmas confection: part song, part recitation, part reminiscence and part cheeky indulgence. Using material ranging from Coward’s own diaries and writings, through Charles Dickens, Dylan Thomas and Ben Johnson to reportage and obscure/familiar (depending on your education) literary works and sprinkled with well known, popular songs, the result is a true alternative to the usual seasonal pantomime fare.

REVIEW: Assassins, Menier Chocolate Factory ✭✭✭✭✭

Assassins at the Menier Chocolate Factory starring Aaron Tveit

What is most impressive about Lloyd’s Assassins is the way it can walk the line between tragedy and farce, between opera and vaudeville, with integrity and precision. Chris Bailey’s quite wonderful choreography makes you feel exuberant and queasy at the same time. More than anything else, the emphasis here is on putting the Musical into Assassins.

REVIEW: Room On The Broom, Lyric Theatre ✭✭✭✭

David Garrud, Emma MacLennan, Daniel Foxsmith and Yvette Clutterbuck aboard the broom in Room On The Broom. Photo: Helen Warner

Room On The Broom, based on the picture book of the same name by Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler flew into the Lyric Theatre on Shaftesbury Avenue today to cast a magical spell over its young audience. Presented by theatre company Tall Stories, this 55 minute show was an absolute delight, and had the audience aged 3+ hooked from start to finish. Room On The Broom tells the story of a friendly witch (Yvette Clutterbuck), her cat (Emma MacLennan) a dog and a frog (David Garrud) and a bird (Daniel Foxsmith) who take to the skies on a broom and face a fearsome dragon  (Daniel Foxsmith) in this magical, musical adventure. Room On The Broom is a colourful and beautifully staged telling of a story that many youngsters present in the audience knew intimately. One youngster sitting next to me knew large slabs of the text and recited along as … Read more

REVIEW: Accolade, St James Theatre ✭✭✭✭

Rona (Abigail Cruttenden), Will (Alexander Hanson) and Ian (Sam Clemmett) in Accolade. Photo by Mark Douet. St James Theatre

McIntyre directs with careful, thorough assuredness, avoiding the easy trap of treating the material like the melodrama it could so easily become, preferring instead to focus on true and believable characterisation and detailed, intimate, and utterly believable situations and exchanges.