Empathy is what defines Medea, a play that in its nervy, Hellenic way justifies filicide. Any adaptation will carry this legacy, from expressionism to the kitchen sink. Fury, by Soho’s resident writer Phoebe Eclair-Powell, goes working-class in a South London council estate through an inspired but patchy retelling. Sam (Sarah Ridgeway) is a single mother […]
The songs are conventional, the punchlines predictable, and the plot utterly bonkers, but there is something about Miss Atomic Bomb that ticked with me, making it quite an enjoyable, if not flawed, new musical. The show certainly has its problems and is unlikely to stand the test of time, but its charm and almost innocent […]
Matthew Perry is an actor that many of us are acutely aware of for his portrayal of the awkward, joke-spinning Chandler from the sitcom Friends. What people may not be aware of is that he is currently starring as the lead in a play of his own creation in the West End, presently at the […]
One of the latest revivals to hit the West End, Guys and Dolls is a classic piece of light-hearted entertainment, a thoroughly enjoyable romp which is sure to cure those pesky January blues. Set in a dizzying yet dazzling den of debauchery within the New York City underworld, Guys and Dolls tells the tale of […]
As is the case with many who count the 2003 film Elf, as one of the best Christmas films out there and a staple of the holiday season, its musical iteration has been anticipated by many in the run-up to its recent opening at the Dominion Theatre. Such excitement has manifested itself in not just […]
An enjoyable evening of roasting the current crop of West End shows, Jest End is amusing, loud, well executed—if not slightly under-polished at times—and a whole load of fun for anyone who is up to speed with London’s musical theatre. The structure is simple: take the music of any song from a West End show […]
This is not the youthful adrenaline shot that it sets out to be. Stoppard’s abridgement of Shakespeare tragedy-laden comedy is marred by poor direction choices, although the performances, as in the NYT’s other shows, are of a remarkably high calibre given the REP cast is handes their hardest material yet with the Merchant of Venice. […]
This is a tricky and charming work. The National Youth Theatre has made something first-rate and empoweringly original with Consensual. It is a discussion of sex but simultaneously a discussion of that discussion, critical of the current discourse yet accepting of a world transformed by porn and marketed sexualisation. Evan Placey’s script is punchy: it […]