fri 18/07/2025

musicals

Q&A Special: Actor Nigel Lindsay

His only previous visit to musical theatre was as Nathan Detroit in the Donmar’s West End production of Guys and Dolls. And now Lindsay sits in the sumptuous dressing room – it feels more like a small flat – at Drury Lane once occupied, he is proud...

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Interview: Timothy Sheader, Artistic Director of Regent's Park Open Air Theatre

The Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre has always been one of London’s theatrical success stories, attracting luminaries from Flora Robson to Judi Dench, but over the past few years under the stewardship of artistic director Timothy Sheader, it has...

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Classic Brits 2011

Arvo Pärt: A political classic

In case anybody had the bizarre notion that the Classical Brits was getting a trifle too classical, the 2011 version of the event was rebranded as the Classic Brit Awards. That would seem to open the door to almost anything - classic rock perhaps...

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The Wonderful Wizard of Oz – The True Story, BBC Four

“There’s no place like home… there’s no place like home… there’s no place like home…” A wish became a mantra and then became a happy ending, when Dorothy wiggled her ruby-red shoes in the MGM movie version of L Frank Baum’s fairy story. But this...

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London Road, National Theatre

The murders of five prostitutes in Ipswich: it’s hard to imagine a less likely subject for a musical, not least because the memory of the crimes of forklift-truck driver Steve Wright, committed in late 2006, is still so horribly fresh. But there is...

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Betty Blue Eyes, Novello Theatre

Foot fetishists will have a field day at Betty Blue Eyes, given that the producer Cameron Mackintosh's latest venture is also the first in my experience to sing of bunions, calluses and corns, the last encompassing a passing reference to a lyric...

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Thrill Me, Tristan Bates Theatre

Does the perfect murder make for the perfect musical? One doesn't have to make undue claims for the work's chamber-size appeal to warm to Thrill Me, the American two-hander that has arrived at the Tristan Bates Theatre as this season's entry in...

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Smash!, Menier Chocolate Factory

Seventies dilemma: Natalie Walter and Tom Conti

If you're going to put on a show about putting on a show, you gotta get a gimmick, as a wise man not unconnected with the late Jack Rosenthal's autobiographical comedy once wrote. Put it another way: if the show/film/TV series depicted is...

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The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, Gielgud Theatre

Zut alors! A gifted English theatre artist, Emma Rice, comes a serious Gallic cropper with The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, a stage musical adaptation of the through-sung 1964 movie that only succeeds in making the recent, prematurely departed Love Story...

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Love dies at Olivier Awards, but Smith, Sondheim, Lyttelton soar

The Andrew Lloyd Webber musical Love Never Dies emerged empty-handed at the 35th Laurence Olivier Awards, despite seven nominations, but it was a good night for Legally Blonde, Stephen Sondheim, and, so it seemed, pretty well any production lucky...

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The Wizard of Oz, London Palladium

If it only had a heart. Animal cruelty, a sadistic green-faced witch, flying monkeys: L Frank Baum’s story, which spawned the MGM movie that made Judy Garland a star, is downright grotesque. And when it’s not unsettling you with its rusty Tin Man,...

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Million Dollar Quartet, Noël Coward Theatre

Michael Malarkey as an "easygoing" Elvis

As acting challenges go it borders on the foolhardy: impersonate not just in looks and mannerisms but in musical skill too some of the most truly iconic figures of the 20th century. And do it up close and personal with an audience who know the...

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