Reviews by Chris Omaweng

I do wonder whether the German accent was strictly necessary. Elizabeth (Alison Reid), or Lizzie, as she was invariably called, is excited at the news of the fall of the Berlin Wall, and sets about reminiscing about the Second World War. A resident of Dresden, she just about managed to escape with her mother: 13 February 1945 marked her sixteenth birthday, which seems more than a little contrived for anyone who knows the significance of that date - the beginning of a sustained aerial bombing … [Read more...]

Matt Doyle is one of those actors that gets just as much pleasure as doing off-Broadway (or even off-off-Broadway) productions as he is doing Elder Price in the Broadway production of The Book of Mormon. Doyle remains a cast member of the Broadway revival of Company, which began previews on 2nd March 2020, and suspended performances due to the coronavirus pandemic ten days later. It is, apparently, one of the only Broadway shows to have some form of pandemic insurance. Doyle’s singing range … [Read more...]

There are all sorts of reasons why the world could end - biotechnology, a cyberattack destroying electric grids, global warming, a nuclear war, an agricultural crisis of some kind, or a combination of these. I won’t give away which one Now or Never has gone for, suffice to say that anyone looking for a show involving extra-terrestrial invasion should look elsewhere. Here, the audience must imagine a scenario in which the world will end in seven days, and therefore the characters in the show … [Read more...]

It’s the sort of bittersweet tale that’s been bandied about before, and no doubt will crop up again sometime. Arnold (David Vale) waxes lyrical about the various changes that have happened over the decades since he and his wife Claire moved into their property, somewhere in the north of England, in 1962. I wasn’t around then, but I’m just about old enough to remember a time when it didn’t really matter if the back door was double-locked or not at night, and one certainly wouldn’t bother getting … [Read more...]

One never knows how an episode of The Seth Concert Series will turn out - there have been shows that have drawn heavily on personal experiences, philanthropic activity and some deep societal issues and the steps that people can take to make a difference in the world in which we live. And then there are concerts like this one, where Ashley Spencer goofs around with her husband Jeremy Jordan and their mutual friend Kara Lindsay. While there are some serious moments, if a particular musical number … [Read more...]