Search Results for: michael ball

REVIEW: The Clockmaker’s Daughter, Landor Theatre ✭✭✭✭

Off West End, Reviews
The Clockmaker's Daughter

It’s a great story, but the show’s most glittering treasure is its music. There are folk tunes, love songs, impassioned ballads, comedy numbers, patter songs, soaring melodies, complex harmonies and splendid polyphony, all with a sprinkle of Irish jig around the edges. The inherent power and attraction of the score is helped in no small measure by a superbly assured delivery of the most difficult, and gorgeous, music by Jennifer Harding who excels in the central role of Constance. This is an engaging, absorbing, fantastical musical, radiant with possibility and truth. It’s confronting in parts and heartbreaking in others. And it is full of magical moments.

REVIEW: Duncton Wood, Union Theatre ✭✭✭✭

Off West End, Reviews
Duncton Wood review Union Theatre

Michael Strassen’s richly detailed, splendidly cast, and lovingly staged premiere production of Duncton Wood (music and lyrics from Mark Carroll, book by James Peries, adapted from Horwood’s book) is now playing at the Union Theatre. Strassen has first rate support from his entire creative team and each produce excellent work in the fulfilment of Strassen’s vision: Josh Sood as Musical Director, Jean Gray as Designer, Tim Deiling as Lighting Designer, Orchestrations from Michael England and Vocal Arrangements by David Steadman. Everyone here does exemplary work. The cast of 16 is exceptional and, with only one slight reservation, superbly and convincingly portrays the Duncton Wood moles.

Tony, Tony, Tony – A Look At This Year’s Tony Awards Race

Broadway, News, Reviews
Tony Awards 2015

Tony, Tony, Tony… On June 7, the 69th Annual Tony Awards will be presented in a glittering ceremony hosted by Kristin Chenoweth and Alan Cumming. As, arguably, the most prestigious award ceremony in the world, the Tonys carry enormous weight. When nominations were announced this year, two shows which received none – Dr Zhivago and Living On Love – posted notices for premature closing. Commercially, then, the Tonys represent real power. Shows which receive Tony Awards see their sales boosted almost always – so producers work hard to garner votes for their productions. This raises the question, squarely, of whether or not the Tony Awards represent acknowledgement of excellence or whether they acknowledge possible commercial prospects. If you win the Tony for Best Actor, are you getting it because you are the very best actor to tread the boards in the season or are you given that award for reasons … Read more

BOOK NOW FOR TONY NOMINATED PRODUCTIONS

Broadway, News
Tony Awards 2015

The Tony Award race is now underway. You can still book tickets for the following Tony nominated shows and judge for yourself which productions are worthy of these coveted awards. THE CURIOUS INCIDENT OF THE DOG IN THE NIGHT TIME Christopher, 15 years old, has an extraordinary brain – exceptional at math while ill-equipped to interpret everyday life. When he falls under suspicion of killing Mrs. Shears’ dog Wellington, he records each fact about the event in the book he is writing to solve the mystery of the murder. But his detective work, forbidden by his father, takes him on a frightening journey that upturns his world. BOOK TICKETS       HAND TO GOD Written by Robert Askins and directed by Moritz von Stuelpnagel, Hand To God plays like an obsidian black farce which turns on those stock elements of farce – violence, sex and religion. The extremity of … Read more

REVIEW: Carmen Disruption, Almeida Theatre ✭✭✭✭

Off West End, Reviews
Carmen Disruption at the 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 elements such as the destruction of community, the isolation of individuals, the globalisation and sterilisation of culture, the power of money and capitalist dreams, the despair that comes from non-intervention, together with the characters and some of the music and plot points from Bizet’s Carmen, into a blender, creating a dystopian present-day landscape where pretty much anything can and does happen. The poetic nuances fly through the writing such that return visits to see the production again are almost compulsory.

REVIEW: Finding Neverland, Lunt-Fontanne Theatre ✭✭✭✭✭

Broadway, News, Reviews
Finding Neverland at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre on Broadway

Finding Neverland is a truly magical musical theatre experience. The score is lively and quite quite beautiful. From ballads to raucous boy songs and big, generous ensemble pieces, plus an exceptional anthem or two – Barlow and Kennedy really deliver the goods. Without question, though, the star here is Matthew Morrison, who gives a boundlessly energetic turn as the troubled playwright J.M.Barrie. Morrison is better than he has ever been.

Critics Choice Broadway Shows The Top 10- April 2015

Broadway, News, Reviews
Chita Rivera in The Visit on Broadway Number One in out Critics Choice Broadway Shows list

What show should audiences from the UK see first if visiting the Great White Way? We have compiled this list to save you the trouble of working it out! It’s just our view – and everyone has one – based on our Reviewers’ thoughts. We will update the list when we can. Only Plays and Musicals which have been running for less than two years are included in this list. (The list assumes that shows which have transferred from the West End have been seen in the West End : Skylight, The Audience, The Curious Incident of the Dog In The Night and Wolf Hall.) So go see them! 1. The Visit For 90 minutes of ecstatic storytelling, you are transported to a place where love, death and consequence are dancing together and where a victory for true love might just not be what you first think it will. Chita … Read more

REVIEW: It Shoulda Been You, Brooks Atkinson Theatre ✭✭✭✭✭

Broadway, Reviews
It Shoulda Been You At The Brooks Atkinson Theatre on Broadway

This is the sort of Musical Comedy which puts equal emphasis on the constituent parts – music and comedy. It’s a gentle, involving and delicious confection. Rather like a wedding, it has taken careful plotting and planning; rather like a wedding cake, it has lots of layers and very fine ingredients to ensure that something will appeal to everyone. It’s not sickly sweet, but surprising and touching, like all good weddings should be.