Lea Salonga has her fans. She also has some superfans, the ones who yell, “I love you Lea!” at almost every opportunity. If that wasn’t enough, there are a couple of starstruck superfans who occasionally yell something indecipherable: Salonga simply smiles, laughs it off, and asks what pretty much everyone else is thinking at that moment: “What was that?” There was a sizeable orchestra, ably conducted by Salonga’s younger brother, Gerard, the resident conductor of the Malaysian Philharmonic, … [Read more...]
Metamorphosis at the Lyric Theatre, London | Review
There are, Maria Caruso was keen to emphasise in a post-show discussion, no wrong answers when it comes to responding to Metamorphosis or even figuring out what it was about. Well, there are, but only if one is being facetious: if I were to say it was about a multitude of bees who descended on a superhero dressed in a cape and stung her, until all that remained was a dead superhero and a sea of dead bees, that would be incorrect. But perhaps the Pollyanna in Caruso may yet reply that there are … [Read more...]
Mad House at the Ambassador Theatre, London
It’s not the salient point of the show – well, perhaps it is for asset-hungry Pam (Sinéad Matthews) – but I became fascinated with how Daniel’s (Bill Pullman) family were going to resolve the matter of his estate after his death, whenever that was supposed to be. That might not, as ‘hospice nurse’ Lillian (Akiya Henry) points out, be for some time, as people near the end of their lives are less communicative than one would reasonably expect a person to be: Daniel may no longer be able to climb … [Read more...]
Sad-Vents by Eleanor Hill at The White Bear Theatre
The satirical musical revue Forbidden Broadway once poked fun out of Mamma Mia!, declaring it to be complex enough to have two acts, as opposed to the seeming plethora of one-act productions that now adorn stages on both sides of the Atlantic. As this was one of those evenings at the theatre where I didn’t want the play to end, it was a pleasant surprise to find when the lights came up after almost ninety minutes of Sad-Vents we had reached the interval and not an abrupt conclusion. The full … [Read more...]
Fantastically Great Women Who Changed The World
A show called Fantastically Great Women Who Changed The World could, if it wanted to, go on all night, and one must resist the temptation to indulge in whataboutery: Dame Sarah Gilbert, Teresa Lambe OBE and Catherine Green OBE were part of the Oxford University team who developed the Oxford/AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine, but aren’t portrayed in this production. Neither is Elizabeth Fry (1780-1845), the prison reformer and philanthropist. Seventy-five per cent of the workforce at Bletchley Park … [Read more...]
Ten Days in a Mad House by So It Goes Theatre Company
It’s quite a story, Ten Days in a Madhouse: Nellie Bly (1864-1922) (Lindsey Huebner) was an ambitious journalist who pushed boundaries because she sought to investigate how women were being treated in various contexts. What she didn’t want to do was write articles on topics that female journalists were largely confined to at the time, such as fashion and culture. By 1887, she found herself doing just that, so she resigned. To cut a long story short, various potential opportunities were denied, … [Read more...]
Soho Songs by Barb Jungr & Mike Lindup at Crazy Coqs, London
I suppose everyone has slightly different experiences of Soho – I am reminded of the sign, no longer there, at 7 Meard Street, previously home to the artist and writer Sebastian Horsley (1962-2010) that read, “This is not a brothel. There are no prostitutes at this address.” Then there’s the Soho Theatre, which has one of those bars so loud I must shout myself hoarse to have any kind of meaningful conversation in there. Nice staff, though. Barb Jungr and Mike Lindup have come up with … [Read more...]