Live improvisation - but a musical? I agree, it sounds ridiculous. It also sounds a bit pants, it may well be funny, but it couldn’t possibly be a good musical. There’s nothing about this that should work. The concept is simple enough in theory, the director (Dylan Emery) allegedly gets a call from the Producer asking for another musical. He gets the audience to shout suggestions, and ends up with a setting, musical styles and a snappy title, voted for by audience cheer. The suggestions are … [Read more...]
Review of Theatre N16’s Bottleneck and Private Peaceful
You wouldn’t be wrong to assume something is a bit out of place when a theatre company called N16 is based in Balham with the postcode SW12. Thankfully, my confusion was short lived as the producers explained to us all that they had moved - but when you’ve already got a website and logos and marketing done, why should a case of losing your N16 venue make you change your name? N16 has just started its first season in the lovely venue of the Bedford in Balham, already well known as a concert … [Read more...]
Review of You Tweet My Face Space
I’m an internet addict. I’ve said for years that if I could connect to the internet by being hooked up through my veins, I would. Imagine my surprise and delight when I found myself faced with a cast of characters who are attached to the internet through a LAN cable fastened with a band on their arm, as if in some weird sci-fi future - without the weird costumes or aliens. Instead, they’re all on their phones. And so here we are, with You Tweet My Face Space. It’s a fairly simple story really … [Read more...]
Review of ANNIE JNR at The Arts Theatre London
Most people are familiar with the popular movie musical Annie, based on the comic strip by Harold Gray. But when I first saw marketing for Annie Jr, I was really confused. Had I somehow remembered the title of the show incorrectly for my entire life? As it turns out - no. Annie Jr is the show adapted to a 60 minute version for young performers, and the entire cast are children, with some late teens in the major adult roles. This production is presented by P2P Productions, a performing arts … [Read more...]
Review of The Suicide at The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama
Is Suicide really funny? That’s what you ask yourself as you enter the Royal Central School of Speech & Drama’s production of Nikolai Erdman’s play The Suicide. The play was written in the 1930s in the Soviet Union, and was after a closed dress rehearsal banned from being performed. At Central, this backstory is incorporated into the set, as the actors mill around nervously on the stage before some Very Serious looking men enter, representing the censorship board. They lean in, and the play … [Read more...]
The Questors present The Wonderful World of Dissocia
It’s known to everyone who has ever reviewed a play that you never quite know what to expect when you’re sent to a small theatre outside central London. You get some terrible ones, some brilliant ones, and some that you can barely remember the next week. The Wonderful World of Dissocia thankfully is firmly in the brilliant camp. We start in a small flat somewhere, where a woman is tuning her guitar too tightly and a string breaks. Our heroine, Miss Lisa Jones, is soon visited by a watch … [Read more...]
Review of Write Here Write Now by Front of House Theatre Company
It is no secret that the theatres in London are full of unrecognised talent - off stage. Working front of house in the theatre is a fairly common side job for drama students, actors between jobs and other hopefuls. Front Of House Theatre Company are a collection of such talent, hailing from some concrete building on the Southbank that obviously can’t be named. Because everyone would be working the rest of the week, Write Here, Write Now, a collection of five short plays, is on a Sunday. And … [Read more...]