musicals
Guys and Dolls, Phoenix TheatreFriday, 15 April 2016
It’s all change once more for Gordon Greenberg’s slick, protean revival, which began life at Chichester back in 2014, as three new leads join the show’s transfer from the Savoy to the Phoenix. If not a revelatory version of this 1950 masterwork, it’... Read more... |
Sunset Boulevard, London ColiseumTuesday, 05 April 2016
Could the fascination of Glenn Close's Norma Desmond transcend the frequent bathos of Lloyd Webber? Would they have sorted out the miking which wrecked last year's first choice of semi-ENO musical, the infinitely superior Sweeney Todd? Yes, to... Read more... |
Mrs Henderson Presents, Noël Coward TheatreWednesday, 17 February 2016
War bad, theatre good. That’s about the level of insight available from this amiable show, transferring after a successful run in Bath. It’s one of the weaker entries in the ever-popular backstage genre, sharing Vaudevillian DNA with Gypsy and a... Read more... |
Guys and Dolls, Savoy TheatreThursday, 07 January 2016
The seemingly eternal British love affair with Guys and Dolls continues apace with the (somewhat recast) transfer to London of the Chichester production from two summers ago, and a more buoyant way to inaugurate the new theatrical year is hard to... Read more... |
Dr Seuss's The Lorax, Old VicMonday, 21 December 2015
You'll feel guilty for having bothered with a programme after seeing The Lorax, the Dr Seuss adaptation that puts saving the environment centre-stage at the Old Vic just as the recent climate change gathering in Paris has done on the world stage.... Read more... |
Funny Girl, Menier Chocolate FactoryThursday, 03 December 2015
It's hard not to invoke the B word - Barbra, that is, not Brice - and I speak as one who bunked off school to catch her at a midweek matinee when Funny Girl first played London almost 50 years ago. It was standing room only at the Prince of Wales... Read more... |
Elf, Dominion TheatreFriday, 06 November 2015
This new family musical, based on the popular 2003 Will Ferrell film, has rightly been censured for its extortionate seating prices, hosting the West End’s most expensive top-end tickets at £267.50 a pop – and that’s without the drinks, ice cream... Read more... |
CD: Sara Bareilles - What's Inside: Songs from WaitressWednesday, 04 November 2015
A pop album drawn from a musical could be off-putting to some. Images of Glee spring to mind or a tweenypop version of Idina Menzel – both of which seem quite a departure from Sara Bareilles’ hugely popular hits "Love Song", "Gravity" or most... Read more... |
Xanadu, Southwark PlayhouseTuesday, 03 November 2015
It trashed Olivia Newton-John’s film career, halted the movie-musical revival, and was so critically reviled it led to the creation of the Razzies. How, then, could the stage version of hubristic 1980 flop Xanadu become a 2007 Broadway hit? The... Read more... |
In the Heights, King's Cross TheatreWednesday, 14 October 2015
Rents are going up, local businesses priced out, and the rich folk and hipsters are invading. That’s in Washington Heights, New York’s largely Dominican-American quarter, but it could as easily describe King’s Cross, one of multiple London areas... Read more... |
theartsdesk Q&A: Musician Ray DaviesSunday, 11 October 2015
The Kinks have turned 50 last and nagging talk of a reunion is still in the ether. In the absence of the real thing, there is a double-disc greatest hits album surfing the wave of latter-day Kinksmania. Meanwhile a kind of Kinks reunion stormed the... Read more... |
Sweeney Todd, Welsh National OperaFriday, 09 October 2015
If nothing else, Stephen Sondheim’s best-known work will put you off pies; it will put you off barbers; and it may in the end put you off Sondheim. Popular though it seems to be with planners and programmers, it’s sluggish and heavy going as drama... Read more... |
