CAMERON Mackintosh’s “austerity musical” Betty Blue Eyes – a stage reworking of the film A Private Function – looked like a sure-fire hit when it opened in London in 2011 to enthusiastic reviews … but it only lasted six months, to the disappointment and puzzlement of many. It was revived for a provincial tour in…
THE idea of a play which happens in various locations around a town or village, or even a city, is one of the oldest theatrical ideas in this country, with roots going back to Miracle and later Mystery Plays, acted out on carts by local guilds, bringing Bible stories to the masses. When community plays…
FULL steam ahead is the only way to approach Shakespeare’s early salutary comedy The Taming of the Shrew, in which he lays down the ground plans for Much Ado About Nothing. And that is just how it’s done in Adela Forestier-Walker’s production for the Athenaeum Limelight Players in Warminster, on stage in Wiltshire before its…
THEY have done it again. Anything I have ever seen by The Swan’s own company of actors has been at the top of any standard you may choose to measure it by. Even if you know nothing about theatre, and would not usually dream of spending any time in one, I would urge anyone to…
BOB Carlton’s musical adaptation of the 1956 film Forbidden Planet, itself loosely based on Shakespeare’s The Tempest, was developed at the London Bubble Theatre in the early 1980s, and made its way to the West End via Liverpool’s Everyman. I first heard of it on Woman’s Hour – the fact that a female, in the…
TENEBRAE is, without doubt, one of the world’s leading vocal ensembles. As well as being winners of this year’s BBC Music Magazine’s Choral Award, even the most cursory look at their catalogue of recordings will give you some idea of their wide ranging repertoire, the many other accolades they have received and of the superlatives…
GEORGE Etheridge’s astonishingly amoral play for London’s 17th century selfie generation has a promenade production in a former Christian Scientist Church to mark the end of studies for a talented and versatile group of AUB students. The Man of Mode is all about a rake, Doriment, whose popularity with the ladies is unbounded. He has…
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…