Our Top 10 Tony Award Performances

Britishtheatre.com selects its Top 10 Tony Award performances

With the Tony Awards coming up we thought we’d nominate some of our favourite Tony Award performances from previous years. Thanks to You Tube we are able to bring you video of these great performances. Let us know your thoughts and nominate your own favourite Tony performances. In the meantime enjoy our selection. In no particular order:- Rent (1996) Newsies (2012) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_Sz7_7T50Q Grand Hotel (1990) Dreamgirls (1982) Kiss Of The Spiderwoman (1993) Hamilton Evita (1980) Sweeney Todd (1979) The Phantom Of The Opera (1988) Ragtime (1998) And just to top off these incredible performances here’s Neil Patrick Harris in what must be considered the greatest (and biggest) Tony Award opening number EVER! Find out more about the Tony Awards

Critic’s Choice – Top 10 West End Musicals (31 March 15)

Siobhan McCarthy and Jeremy Secomb in Tooting Arts Club's Sweeney Todd.

What Musical should you see first in London? 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 regularly so new productions get on your radar and when original casts change that is factored in. Plays which have been running for more than three years are not included – this is a list for new or relatively new productions running in London. So go see them! 1. Beautiful: The Carole King Musical The throbbing, majestic and luminous heart of this production comes from Katie Brayben’s faultless, radiant and absolutely triumphant turn as Carole King. Brayben recreates the feel, the sound, the look of Carole King in a completely authentic and resonant way – she feels like the natural woman. Read Our Review | Book Tickets 2. … Read more

Sweeney Todd At ENO – First Look Photographs

Emma Thompson and Bryn Terfel in Sweeney Todd

Yet another Sweeney Todd sets up shop in London this week on a vastly different scale to the intimate affair at Harrington’s Pie And Mash Shop on Shaftesbury Avenue. Starring Emma Thompson, Bryn Terfel, Matthew Seadon-Young, Katie Hall, Philip Quast, Jack North, Alex Gaumond, Rosalie Craig and John Owen-Jones, this production runs until April 12 at the London Colliseum. Tickets are still available for Sondheim’s masterpiece at the ENO. Photos by Tristram Kenton

Philip Quast Joins Sweeney Todd Cast

Judge Turpin (Philip Quast) and Beadle Bamford (Jeff Blumenkrantz in the New York Philharmonic Sweeney Todd. Photo: David Gordon

It was announced today that Philip Quast will join Bryn Terfel and Emma Thompson in the upcoming production of Sweeney Todd for English National Opera playing the role of Judge Turpin. Multi Olivier-award winning Philip Quast will play Judge Turpin. His many UK musical theatre credits include Grahame Chandler in The Fix at the Donmar Warehouse, Georges Seurat in Stephen Sondheim’s Sunday in The Park with George and Emile de Becque in Rodgers and Hammerstein’s South Pacific both for the National Theatre, Juan Peron in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Evita at the Adelphi Theatre and Georges in La Cage Aux Folles for the Menier Chocolate Factory. Quast played Javert in the original Australian cast of Les Misérables as well as in the West End and can be heard as part of Les Misérables Complete Symphonic Recording and on Les Misérables: The Dream Cast in Concert, recorded during the show’s tenth anniversary … Read more

London fringe venue closes after first production.

Sweeney Todd Twickenham

London’s newest fringe theatre is closing after staging one of the most acclaimed productions of a Stephen Sondheim musical in recent times. Sweeney Todd played its final sold-out performance of an extended opening season just yesterday at the 100-seat Twickenham Theatre in West London. Today, Executive Director, West End producer Tony Green has just two days to vacate the London Road premises after the pub was sold in a move he calls a “total bombshell”. “I have been advised that the pub has been sold and that the new landlords ‘do not figure theatre as part of their plans’,” he says. “To make matters worse, the new landlords, along with the brewery and the superior landlords of the site are not going to honour the three months’ notice period I had in place.” Mr Green is now actively seeking new premises in the area, where he has lived for 25 … Read more

Sweeney In A Pie Shop Cast Announced

Sweeney Todd at Harringtons Pie Shop

London is awash with productions of Stephen Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd at the moment. Perhaps one of the most interesting is taking place at Harrington’s Pie and Mash Shop in Tooting, South London. This site-specific production by Tooting Arts Club will see audiences congregate at Anton’s barber shop before being shown to Harrington’s, where the decor, little changed since it was opened in 1908, will provide the setting for Mrs Lovett’s infamous establishment. Mrs Lovett will be played by Siobhan McCarthy who was Olivier nominated as the original Donna in Mamma Mia!, and is also known for playing Roisin Connor in ITV’s Bad Girls. Siobhan will be joined by Jeremy Secomb as Sweeney. Jeremy’s West End Credits include The Phantom Of the Opera and Priscilla. Other casting includes David Freeman as Judge Turpin, Ian Mowatt as Beadle Bamford, Kiara Jay as Pirelli/Beggar Woman, Nadim Naaman as Anthony Hope, Grace Chapman as … Read more

Emma Thompson and Bryn Terfel to Bring Sweeney Todd To ENO in 2015

Sweeney Todd ENO

It was confirmed today that International opera star Bryn Terfel and Academy Award-winning actress Emma Thompson will reprise their roles as Sweeney Todd and Mrs Lovett in Stephen Sondheim’s gloriously gruesome musical Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street for a limited season at the London Coliseum in early 2015. Following critically-acclaimed performances at New York’s Lincoln Center earlier this year, this sell-out staging comes to ENO  with just 13 performances from 30 March – 12 April. Sweeney Todd will be the first production in a major new long-term partnership between ENO and The GradeLinnit Company. Sweeney Todd will be directed by Lonny Price and under the musical direction of David Charles Abel with further casting to be announced. Speaking ahead of today’s press announcement, Emma Thompson said: ‘I can’t believe I am being given the opportunity to perform this extraordinary piece once again – this time with the ENO … Read more