London Theatre Reviews - West End & Off West End

The world-famous Wilton’s Music Hall and the children’s classic The Wind in the Willows make perfect bedfellows. Piers Torday has written a version that brings together music, singing, dancing, puppetry and acting to offer a welcome addition to the holiday season's traditional offerings of panto, A Christmas Carol and The Nutcracker. The show tells the story of the river animals Mole, Ratty, Badger and Toad but with an environmental take which locates the action in contemporary London with the … [Read more...]

Some journalists get, as it were, a bad press, though some of them don’t help themselves with some of the things they write and do. This play doesn’t, overall, say anything that won’t already be known to people who have an interest in newspapers and how they operate, particularly when it comes to the lengths journalists are prepared to go to in order to get a story they deem to be newsworthy. Matt Bradley (Sam Hoare) tells his story involving both his personal and professional lives - he … [Read more...]

Paul (Lewis Bruniges) and Freddie Metz (Oliver Yellop), who identify as cousins, are so desperate to get out of the German Democratic Republic, commonly referred to - but not by the cousins - as East Germany, that they spent months digging a tunnel to freedom. A brain drain from East to West Germany was reduced after the erection of the Berlin Wall in 1961, with all sorts of ramifications for those who attempted to leave but got caught trying to do so. Needless to say, various tunnelling … [Read more...]

As you enter the auditorium of the Lyttleton, projected on a series of steep steps and onto the back of the stage are programmes, posters and other advertising material for previous productions of Othello overlayed with ever-changing dates starting in the 1600s and progressing to the current day. A man dressed in black is mopping the stage using the kind of cleaning trolley you might see on a hospital ward - why he’s doing this is never explained or referenced again. Then the projections stop … [Read more...]

I was, and still am, greatly intrigued by Louise (Heather O’Sullivan) and the themes of control, I saw throughout Lowkey Dying. The play, written and performed by Heather O’Sullivan, is a one-woman show where I was introduced to Louise. A woman who receives her sense of validation from various apps and ‘self-help’ rituals. And any fulfillment she finds from her dental surgery job is sourced through color coding and scheduling time-sensitive appointments. Louise has many relatable aspects. Her … [Read more...]

Catch Me is a new musical written by Arnoud Breitbarth and Christian Czornyi and directed by Adam Lenson, that debuted in 2016 at the Arts Theatre in London and was recorded live at the Stone Nest in London and made available in digital format by Theatrical Solutions, with a strong West End cast. I watched it online, the video and sound quality is flawless, and the production is top quality, I did not feel I missed anything by not being able to attend the live show. The musical tells the … [Read more...]

There are usually, broadly speaking, two large demographics of patrons at a family show like The Wizard of Oz – children and their responsible accompanying adults. The best family shows have both camps coming away feeling as though they’ve enjoyed proceedings. There’s a third group that I couldn’t help noticing at the performance I attended at Curve - adults without children, and I don’t just mean reviewers who didn’t want to bring anyone with them to Leicester on a six-hour round trip on … [Read more...]