As the previous London production of this great musical was so iconic, it is difficult for those of us who remember it not to think back to it. And indeed, it is all so familiar - and sitting in the Curve Theatre in Leicester watching proceedings unfold, I thought to myself, as the late Jim Steinman once wrote, “It’s all coming back to me now”. Yet this is an entirely different production, and gloriously reimagined. One way or another it manages to shave twenty minutes (perhaps a little bit … [Read more...]
Crazy For You at Chichester Festival Theatre
When Bobby Child (Charlie Stemp) turns up in Deadrock, Nevada – a fictional town (yes, I had the naivety to look it up) – he’s desperate for some water: it’s inadvertently relatable in a heatwave, even in the wonderfully air-conditioned Chichester Festival Theatre. Crazy For You is far more about song and dance than it is about the storyline, but there’s something rather topical about a theatre that has fallen on hard times that is eventually saved through philanthropy and without an iota of … [Read more...]
Much Ado About Nothing at Lyttelton Theatre
It is, after all, called Much Ado About Nothing, so if one comes away thinking that not very much happened, has the production lived up to the play’s title? This version isn’t always easy to follow – I refer specifically to Act IV Scene I, in which numerous characters start yelling at each other and it’s not clear (at least to me) what all that shouting was supposed to achieve. It was almost like being in a crowded bar in which everyone must speak louder in order to be heard, which precipitates … [Read more...]
The Woman Who Amuses Herself at the Jack Studio Theatre
As the Mona Lisa measures 30” x 21”, it can seem somewhat unremarkable to some visitors to the Louvre Museum in Paris – there must be a large number of considerably larger paintings than that in the same building. Having been completed in 1519, or rather not worked on any further after Leonardo da Vinci’s death that year, it is now apparently too fragile to be transported anywhere, so it stays where it is. Other theories seem to suggest its high profile means it is simply too great a risk to … [Read more...]
No Tits & Plenty of Troubles at the Golden Goose Theatre
Set during the height of Duran Duran’s chart success, the dangers continue to be real for people living in Ireland during the Troubles, and the play isn’t immune from a critical incident that has a major impact on everyone left behind. Claire (Aimee McGoldrick), under instruction from her mother not to speak of what happened to anyone else, finds it difficult to come to terms with events, more so than her classmates, who seem to move on faster than she can. The play is the result of an … [Read more...]
Dreamboats and Petticoats at Churchill Theatre, Bromley
There is a storyline going on, but it’s not exactly gripping: Dreamboats and Petticoats is not the sort of show to be enjoyed for its plot, which is highly contrived in such a way as to almost crowbar yet more chart music from the 1950s and early 1960s. Indeed, I found it rather amusing that the story is virtually abandoned towards the end of the second half. There is no postscript, and the audience is not told what happens to any of the characters after the story abruptly stops. But this is … [Read more...]
A Thousand Sons at the Etcetera Theatre
A Thousand Sons begins by taking the audience back to 1945, which almost immediately made me steel myself for yet another dramatized account of World War Two. But its consideration of wartime events is brief, talking specifically about the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It is, I suppose, relatively common knowledge (and so I don’t consider this a spoiler), though I don’t recall school history textbooks referring to ‘Little Boy’ and ‘Fat Man’, the codenames for the two types of … [Read more...]