ANY review of Sugar simply has to begin with Some Like It Hot, universally recognised as one of the wittiest and most stylish comedies ever to come out of Hollywood. Someone was almost bound to do a stage musical adaptation sooner or later, though I was surprised to find that Sugar had been around since…
THIS show is certainly proving popular at the moment, as it was only last year that I reviewed the Chichester Festival production on tour at Bristol. Since making its way from screen to stage, it has always included many gallons of water, beneath which Don Lockwood sings and dances, and this show goes even further…
FLORIAN Zeller has been called the new Yazmina Reza, but at 36 he has already written far more than his famous older compatriot, whose most successful work, Art, is to be revived by original London director Matthew Warchus as part of his second season at the Old Vic this Autumn. As well as sharing the…
IN the 25 years that I have been reviewing plays, musicals and music theatre productions in Yeovil, I have constantly been amazed at the depth and range of talent in performers from this rural area of South Somerset and West Dorset … and I really didn’t think I could be more dazzled. But that was…
THERE are just a few moments in Frank Marcus’s poignant and prescient play The Killing of Sister George that underline how much things have changed since it was written in 1964. Its Wikipedia entry says that Marcus intended it as a farce, but it was taken up as an iconic drama-with-laughs by a Lesbian community…
WHO better to take on a musical all about producing a song and dance show than a noted dance teacher and director. Poole and Parkstone Musical Theatre must have been delighted when Claire Camble-Hutchins agreed to direct and choreograph 42nd Street. With the help of musical director Sam Ryall and set and lighting designers Kevin…
THE new Gainsborough Bath Spa hotel has been featured in the Condé Nast Traveller 2016 Hot List: The Best New Hotels in the World. This prestigious listing features the editors’ and contributing reporters’ handpicked selection of their favourite new hotels for 2016. After visiting six continents and 36 countries, the team reduced the list to…
Brahms: Violin Concerto Mahler: Symphony No. 1 Kirill Karabits: Conductor Guy Braunstein: Violin FOR their final concert of the Lighthouse season, Karabits and the BSO welcomed the Israeli violinist Guy Braunstein for the first time. Braunstein was leader of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra from 2000 to 2013 and now, still only in his early forties,…
R. Strauss: Don Juan Sibelius: Violin Concerto Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 4 Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, leader Amin Merchant Thomas Dausgaard: Conductor Augustin Hadelich: Violin THIS was an evening of passionate, extrovert, no-holds-barred music-making, taking us from Strauss’s portrait of the great lover Don Juan, via the intensity and drama of…
“GET your hankies ready,” said a friend before the curtain went up on Goodnight Mr Tom at Bath Theatre Royal on Tuesday. I had only heard of the 1981 book and John Thaw’s television performance, and so came new to Michelle Magorian’s story of the evacuee and the recluse. It’s no surprise that it is…