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A half-empty theatre rarely bodes well. The curtain rose as my heart sank, and this underwhelming, under-rehearsed, and unambitious production began with over a minute of supposedly tension-building music and flashing lights that did little more than to make me overly conscious of the hundreds of empty seats in the New Theatre. Just because a […]
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Image Credit: Matt Crockett. Description: the central cast of The Band. Jukebox musicals, the idea of incorporating the music of an artist or a band into a show, has had a lot of success, from Mamma Mia to The Jersey Boys. However, The Band, using the music of Take That, is unlike these others, offering […]
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Hamilton, a musical so loved it kept its namesake on the 10 dollar bill, is as much a success of musical theatre in the UK as in the US. A musical that all theatre lovers have been hoping to come over to our ‘island across the sea’ have finally had their dreams come true at […]
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A Berlin Kabaret advertises itself as ‘Lady Gaga meets Brecht’ and a ‘Response to the Refugee Crisis’. It is underselling itself. It is neither of those things but something far more poignant. It is not a ‘response’ or a ‘reaction’ to one specific event. Even with its energy and vibrancy, the performance is never pushed […]
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Thoroughly Modern Millie is as thoroughly delightful as ever. Now on tour, and having just graced Oxford’s New Theatre with a whole lot of jazz and sequins, it appears the classic Broadway show is still on top form. It is hardly surprising that this musical won six Tony awards, including best musical, as it is […]
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The silence beneath the noise is the guiding undercurrent of Witch, an original production created by the students of the Opera and Theatre course, and directed by Jonny Danciger. Whilst 35 minutes in an office may not be what you would expect from a self-titled opera, the exploration of what being a woman in the […]
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Merlot & Royal, an original musical by Imogen Mechie, opened at the Tingewick Hall with great potential, but it failed to live up to a promising start. Set in the 1950s, Merlot & Royal concerns the failing eponymous bank, rocked by the numerous scandals of its recently promoted director, brought in at the death of his […]
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At first glance, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend looks like just another standard rom-com. A successful, Harvard-and-Yale-educated woman named Rebecca runs into Josh Chan, her summer-camp sweetheart, in the streets of New York City. In an instant Rebecca realizes she’s miserable, turns down a promotion at her high-caliber law firm, and follows Josh cross-country to California in a […]
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Walking away from St Catherine’s on Saturday morning I couldn’t stop myself humming ‘Merlot and Royal’; it was at this point that I realised that the rehearsal I had just seen was something quite special. Merlot and Royal is a brand new musical which has finally made its way on stage after being written by […]
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Little Shop of Horrors is a weird, wacky and wonderful musical. A cult classic I had failed to encounter before I took my seat in the Playhouse and I didn’t quite realise what I was in for; it was a very strange experience but also a brilliantly entertaining one. A musical about a young botanist […]
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As I watched the cast of Little Shop of Horrors perform at a tech rehearsal, I was nostalgic for a time I’ve never lived in. With the punchy girl-group dancing, the streetscape filled with optimism, the harmonising, and the young lovers, it was just plain fun. After seeing a mix of songs I was struck […]
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On the 28th of June 1968, a group of female machinists marched on Whitehall, picketing for change, campaigning for gender pay equality, and brandishing a banner emblazoned with the legend ‘We Want Sex’. Nearly 50 years later, Joe Peden’s production of ‘Made in Dagenham’ makes a playful testimonial to this act of political assertion gone […]
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On Saturday I went along to the Simpkins Lee Theatre to see a preview of Made in Dagenham which is being performed this week in Oxford. The musical looks at the story of the 1968 Ford sewing machinist factory in Dagenham where the women went on strike demanding equal pay. The three pieces that I […]
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There have been a hell of a lot of plays about Russia this term. We had Collaborators, all about Stalin, at the Pilch. Then there’s The Optimists, which is out this week at the Burton Taylor, featuring a farcical communist plot. The White Guard, a play about the Ukranian civil war will be on at […]
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Staging Anna Karenina is a tricky business. For a start, you have to chisel down one thousand pages and repackage it into a two-hour spectacle, no mean feat for a text that needs no further advertisement than that of being ‘the greatest book ever written.’ Then, for a novel where the exact English translation for […]
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Prostitution, petunias, serial killers and community. These issues might seem to be an unconventional combination and yet they all come together seamlessly in ‘London Road.’ This is a musical that follows the community in Ipswich who found themselves living amongst the notorious serial killer Steve Wright. It explores the experiences and consequences for those at […]
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STOP is a deeply moving and grounding play, reminding us of the importance of ‘stopping’ in this chaotic, highly pressured modern world. The four characters – Justin, Lewis, Chloe and Martha – all meet at a bus stop and we are taken in to each of their worlds in an emotionally charged, tear-jerking production. At […]
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That I now want to go and read the book of The Commitments is testament to its success in performance. Energetic, spectacular but also sensitive and in possession of a raw charm, Jamie Lloyd’s production had me beaming from start to finish. The musical is adapted by Roddy Doyle from his original novel and is […]
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A brand new musical focusing on issues of mental health, STOP looks to be the theatrical event of the term. Attending one of the cast’s rehearsals I was witness to what is very much a work in progress, but from what I saw this show has the potential to be something really special. The story […]
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