Month: January 2023

The script is not without narrative skill or ambition but fails to be particularly profound A young gay man communes with his dead partner as he struggles on through life in Tom Ratcliffe’s slight, sentimental exploration of bereavement. The 60-minute script is not without narrative skill or ambition, but it’s too skimpy to approach anything… Continue reading Wreckage at the Turbine Theatre review: a slight exploration of bereavement

Dolly’s new songs are good and sometimes excellent in this imperfect tryout T hough Dolly Parton is a goddess, my hopes weren’t high for her musical transposition of Dickens to depression-era Tennessee, which started life as a 40-minute “presentation” at her theme park, Dollywood. More fool me. Hardscrabble Appalachian life in 1936 has clear parallels with Victorian poverty, and Dolly and… Continue reading Dolly Parton’s Smoky Mountain Christmas Carol review: carried with glee and gusto

While some moments lag, Josie Rourke’s joyful, bold production give an idea what the West End’s newest theatre can show us The West End’s spanking new theatre @sohoplace comes into its own with this rich and beautiful staging of Shakespeare’s comedy by Josie Rourke, full of music and charm. Leah Harvey’s Rosalind, Alfred Enoch’s Orlando and Rose Ayling-Ellis’s Celia are… Continue reading As You Like It at @sohoplace review: a rich and beautiful staging full of music and charm

He won the award for his standout role in Cyrano de Bergerac, whose director Jamie Lloyd called him, ‘Quite simply the greatest actor of our generation’ My keen admiration for actor James McAvoy goes up a notch when he comes onto our Zoom call using the screen name “Mr Fantastico”. It looks like he’s in a hotel… Continue reading James McAvoy, Best Actor at ES Theatre Awards 2022: ‘Theatre is changing for the better’

The oak-paneled, stained glass, 14th century Middle Temple Hall feels Dickens-ier than Dickens This atmospheric version of Dickens’s evergreen Christmas morality tale, laced with reworked and reworded carols, deserves its place alongside the multiple other adaptations vying for attention across London. Both nimble and faithful, its main asset is its location. The oak-panelled, stained glass, 14th… Continue reading A Christmas Carol at Middle Temple Hall review: resistance is useless

This is a firecracker of a set that delivers almost every musical hit from the past 90 years B race yourselves. Cabaret stars Le Gateau Chocolat and Jonny Woo say they are going to perform every single musical hit from the past 90 years in their new show. Even limiting it to songs they love this would probably require… Continue reading Le Gateau Chocolat & Jonny Woo: A Night at the Musicals at Soho Theatre review: riotously entertaining

When it premièred in Paris in 2014 as Le Cercle des Illusionistes, Alexis Mischalik’s play garnered Molière awards for both Best Author and Best Director and that production is still running, so this first UK production arrives with great expectations to launch a new year of theatregoing. It delivers a densely packed 100 minutes of… Continue reading The Art Of Illusion

Honest triptych of audio monologues on Black British identity and the pandemic During lockdown, Pitlochry Festival Theatre collaborated with the Edinburgh Lyceum to produce Sound Stage, a series of plays written by leading writers, among them Mark Ravenhill, Roy Williams and Timberlake Wertenbaker. The Perthshire theatre has continued to produce audio work – albeit of… Continue reading Blaccine: First Dose review

Matt Slack brings irreverent edginess to this entertaining, big-budget panto spectacle This plum show from panto giants Crossroads is playful and anarchic, buoyed up by the creatively chaotic energy of its cast. Directed by Michael Harrison and co-written by Alan McHugh and returning favourite Matt Slack, who also plays the title role, the script is… Continue reading Dick Whittington review