News & Reviews

REVIEW: The Angry Brigade, Bush Theatre ✭✭

The play strikes one as more comic, at least in the first Act, than it is played here under James Grieve's direction. More Thin Blue Line and less Z Cars mig…

BIG INTERVIEW: Dean Pitchford, Lyricist of Carrie The Musical

Carrie the musical is a Broadway flop of legend. We spoke to lyricist Dean Pitchford to get the real story.

Douglas Mayo

News & Reviews

INTERVIEW: Lorna Luft Talks about The Judy Garland Songbook On Tour

Douglas Mayo

News & Reviews

REVIEW: Carrie, Southwark Playhouse ✭✭✭✭✭

What is most admirable about Gary Lloyd's directorial vision here is that no attempt is made to recreate the film, the book or even the way this musical has …

REVIEW: Portia Coughlan, Old Red Lion Theatre ✭✭

There really is nothing wrong with any individual performance—every actor has crafted a fully formed 3 dimensional character with excellent comedic timing. B…

REVIEW: Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, Birmingham (On Tour) ✭✭✭✭

Key to the success of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels is the onstage relationship between Jameson played by Michael Praed and Benson played by Noel Sullivan. There i…

Douglas Mayo

News & Reviews

Top-Selling Shows May 2015

Douglas Mayo

News & Reviews

David Cameron's Victory Prompts Update To The Audience

Douglas Mayo

News & Reviews

REVIEW: Hay Fever, Duke Of York's Theatre ✭✭✭✭

Felicity Kendal is a triumph as the effervescent, self-indulgent diva that is Judith. Her throaty, raspy tones; the endless lighting and stubbing out of ciga…

REVIEW: The Verb To Love, Old Red Lion Theatre ✭✭✭

The Verb, To Love is a curious and wonderful new musical currently playing at the Old Red Lion Theatre. It’s easy to be impressed by the show’s sole author, …

McGowan To Play Jimmy Savile At Park Theatre

Douglas Mayo

News & Reviews

REVIEW: A Mad World My Masters, Barbican Theatre ✭✭

It has everything: dirty, jazzy songs sung lustily; knob jokes; fake brawls; knickers tossed to the audience; knob jokes; sex scenes of all kinds; an alterca…

REVIEW: Matchbox Theatre, Hamsptead Theatre ✭✭

There is no complaint about the writing. Frayn creates situations and conveys ideas quickly and cleverly. His knowledge of human kind and its foibles, the th…

REVIEW: Beyond Caring, NT Temporary Theatre ✭✭✭

There is something undeniably fascinating about watching strangers find common ground, about seeing a team form in adverse circumstances, especially where, a…

REVIEW: Product, Arcola Theatre ✭✭✭

Directed by Robert Shaw, this fifty minute satirical monologue is well worth seeing for Olivia Poulet's gifted comic turn. She extracts the humour rather as …

REVIEW: American Buffalo, Wyndhams Theatre ✭✭✭

REVIEW: The Twits, Royal Court Theatre ✭✭

With both Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Matilda still playing with great success elsewhere, this is the latest attempt to bring Dahl’s unique alchemy…

Tim Hochstrasser

News & Reviews

CRITICS CHOICE: Top 10 New Plays 1 May 2015

REVIEW: The Merchant Of Venice, Shakespeare's Globe ✭✭✭✭

Set firmly in its time, circa 1597, with costumes and accoutrements which establish an exotic, far away and, most importantly, bygone era, Munby avoids the g…

CRITICS CHOICE: Top 10 Musicals 1st May 2015

Is Something Rotten Headed To The West End?

Douglas Mayo

News & Reviews

REVIEW: Ah, Wilderness!, Young Vic Theatre ✭✭

The combination of sand, water, and romantic moon makes for a touching image towards the end of the play. It is beautifully lit by the talents of Charles Bal…

Fanny And Stella at Above The Stag

Douglas Mayo

News & Reviews

Teddy Comes To Southwark Playhouse

Douglas Mayo

News & Reviews

REVIEW: No Milk For The Foxes, Camden People's Theatre ✭✭✭

No Milk for the Foxes is a solid piece of theatre preaching to the leftie middle class choir but ultimately that choir needs more a little more than “Aren’t …

Mess Headlines Imaginate Before Touring

Douglas Mayo

News & Reviews

REVIEW: Everyman, National Theatre ✭✭

Rufus Norris throws everything at the production. The result is garish, adolescent and intolerably dull. Too much show and too little style and substance. As…

REVIEW: Wicked, Apollo Victoria Theatre ✭✭✭✭✭

Wicked is tremendous shape and the current cast gives it full value. If you have never seen it or if you have seen it, now is the time to go again – you too …

REVIEW: Follies In Concert, Royal Albert Hall ✭✭✭

In the case of Betty Buckley as Carlotta, the casting was inspired. Her powerful and joyful rendition of I'm Still Here stopped the show. But it was Anita Do…

Dusty Cast Announced

Douglas Mayo

News & Reviews

REVIEW: Closer To Heaven, Union Theatre ✭✭✭✭

What makes the musical stand-out is it unashamed gaiety, and I use that word in its modern sense. This is, as Nicholas De Jongh said when the piece premiered…

Gypsy Extends West End Run

Douglas Mayo

News & Reviews

REVIEW: Light Shining In Buckinghamshire, Lyttleton Theatre ✭✭

There is an acute fascination in watching the richly intense banquet give way, bit by bit, to the advances of the common folk, to see the lavish table become…

REVIEW: Abyss, Arcola Theatre ✭✭✭✭

But in the end the tension between the daily count of the passage of time and the avoidance of narrative direction is too much to sustain and in the final se…

Tim Hochstrasser

News & Reviews

REVIEW: Scarlet, Southwark Playhouse ✭✭✭✭

Theatre Renegade’s tour-de-force examination of gender violence, Scarlet, is one of the tightest pieces of fringe theatre currently on the stage and not to b…

REVIEW: Ah Wilderness!, Young Vic, ✭✭✭✭

Mark Ludmon

News & Reviews

Nicole Kidman Returns To The West End Stage

Douglas Mayo

News & Reviews

Anything Goes UK Tour Cut Short

Douglas Mayo

News & Reviews

Women On The Verge To Close

Douglas Mayo

News & Reviews

REVIEW: Dead Royal, Ovalhouse ✭✭✭✭

Roberts is immaculate in playing both parts: the sour, rotten, old Wallis who, despite her bitterness, wants to save Diana from the dreary drudgery of joinin…

REVIEW: Shock Treatment, Kings Head Theatre ✭✭✭

Julie Atherton can play dowdy geek character, svelte seductive siren, and camp fetish magnet (complete with vinyl Nurse's outfit just covering her pert derri…

REVIEW: Death Of A Salesman, Royal Shakespeare Theatre ✭✭✭

The role of Willy Loman is very exacting, requiring great range and subtlety from the actor. The single greatest requirement, though, is for the actor to be …

REVIEW: Love's Sacrifice, The Swan Theatre ✭✭

Despite a delicious design from Anna Fleischle (the black velvet floor and beautifully detailed costumes especially) and some winning, often charming, perfor…

REVIEW: Each His Own Wilderness, Orange Tree ✭✭✭✭✭

The Orange Tree theatre has established a unique niche for itself as a home for new writing and carefully chosen revivals of long-neglected repertoire. This …

Tim Hochstrasser

News & Reviews

REVIEW: Carmen Disruption, Almeida Theatre ✭✭✭✭

At just over 90 minutes, this is a theatrical spectacle and tapestry as ethereal and vital as it is strange and incomprehensible. Simon Stephens throws those…

REVIEW: Plastic Figurines, New Diorama Theatre ✭✭✭✭

Plastic Figurines, presently on tour across the UK, and currently stopped at the New Diorama Theatre is a tour de force two hander one act, illuminating the …

REVIEW: All Male Pirates Of Penzance, Richmond Theatre ✭✭✭

The key is truthfulness: the men play the female roles as truthfully as they can, in the context of the show, and by doing so, unlock different energies and …

REVIEW: Fun Home, Circle In The Square ✭✭✭✭

Universality is the key to the success of Fun Home. Fundamentally, it is about family and the undisclosed natures and secrets of those who are our family. Ch…

REVIEW: Animals, Theatre 503 ✭✭✭

With the recent news that the Florida and Wisconsin state governments have banned employees of their state level environmental protection agencies from using…