Theatre Reviews
I Am a Camera, Southwark PlayhouseSaturday, 08 September 2012
The Kander and Ebb musical Cabaret, inspired by the Berlin stories of Christopher Isherwood, is soon to return to the West End with Will Young. Its less well-known source is John Van Druten's 1952 play I Am a Camera. Read more...
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Blink, Soho TheatreThursday, 06 September 2012
After years spent in the dark alleyways of abuse, where the only optimistic light is the sickly glow of neon, some new playwrights are emerging into the sunnier meadows of romantic comedy. The market leader must be David Greig’s delightful Midsummer (2008), which was also a love letter to the city of Edinburgh. Now, Phil Porter’s quirky romcom has come down from the Edinburgh Festival, ready to set metropolitan hearts a flutter and warm even the most cynical temperament. Read more... |
Without You, Menier Chocolate FactoryThursday, 06 September 2012
Who says you can't go home again? American actor-singer Anthony Rapp does that, and then some, with his solo show Without You, in which one of the original leads of the Broadway musical Rent relives the passions and pain of an extraordinary time. Quite how the 80-minute piece will register with non-Rentheads (as the show's fans remain known) must be up for grabs. Read more... |
Jumpy, Duke of York's TheatreWednesday, 29 August 2012
Affairs, arguments, accidents. Feminism, marital failure and a fear of ageing. Jumpy has plenty of conflicts and issues, dunked in a wonderful bittersweet humour. But while April de Angelis faces uncomfortable truths, she fails to deal with them with equal courage. This play gnashes its teeth – at the gap in communication between generations and at the eternal pursuit of youth – but it lacks bite. Read more... |
Vieux Carré, Charing Cross TheatreTuesday, 28 August 2012
An erstwhile Broadway flop provides late-summer theatrical fascination in the form of Vieux Carré, the self-evidently flawed Tennessee Williams play from 1977 that nonetheless is worth seeing for anyone attuned to this playwright's singular articulation of abandonment and loss. Read more... |
Soul Sister, Savoy TheatreSaturday, 25 August 2012
The fright wig is instantly recognisable. Even with her back turned, it’s obviously Tina Turner on stage. Except it isn’t. It’s actress Emi Wokoma playing the singer in a performance virtually guaranteed to turn her into a star. Casualty and EastEnders will soon be distant memories for Wokoma. Good for her, maybe, but she’s the best thing about the otherwise wafer-thin Soul Sister. Read more... |
An Incident at the Border, Trafalgar StudiosThursday, 23 August 2012
Since 2004, the Ambassador Group’s Trafalgar Studios has done sterling work in staging West End transfers for some of London’s most promising fringe talents. Kieran Lynn’s An Incident at the Border arrives in the centre of town from the Finborough Theatre, where it was seen in July. It has a good cast and, because of its sceptical attitude to the pervading aesthetics of naturalism in contemporary playwriting, lots of promise. But can it live up to expectations? Read more... |
Edinburgh Fringe: I, Tommy/Josie Long/WitTankTuesday, 21 August 2012
I, Tommy, Gilded Balloon ****
Everybody will be familiar with Tommy Sheridan's story, and not necessarily because they closely follow Scottish politics at their most internecine. Rather because the Glaswegian socialist went from being barely a paragraph in broadsheets to being plastered over the front pages of tabloids after a series of revelations – which he strongly denies – about visiting swingers' clubs. Read more... |
Edinburgh Fringe: Tam o' Shanter/Trevor Noah/Bridget ChristieMonday, 20 August 2012
Tam o' Shanter, Assembly Hall ****
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Edinburgh Fringe: Jigsy/Pappy's/Joe LycettSunday, 19 August 2012
Jigsy, Assembly Rooms ****
Les Dennis may have started his career as a comic, and then as a presenter of cheesy, family-friendly television game shows, but of late he has been plying his trade as a very decent actor. And so it proves again in Tony Staveacre's one-man play about a washed up Liverpudlian club comic. Read more... |
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★★★★★
‘A compulsive, involving, emotionally stirring evening – theatre’s answer to a page-turner.’
The Observer, Kate Kellaway
Direct from a sold-out season at Kiln Theatre the five star, hit play, The Son, is now playing at the Duke of York’s Theatre for a strictly limited season.
★★★★★
‘This final part of Florian Zeller’s trilogy is the most powerful of all.’
The Times, Ann Treneman
Written by the internationally acclaimed Florian Zeller (The Father, The Mother), lauded by The Guardian as ‘the most exciting playwright of our time’, The Son is directed by the award-winning Michael Longhurst.
Book by 30 September and get tickets from £15*
with no booking fee.
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