tue 19/03/2024

Regents Park Theatre

La Cage Aux Folles, Regent's Park Open Air Theatre review - 40 years on, the drag show still entertains and educates

Forty years ago, the world was very different for gay men. AIDS was devastating their communities, especially in the big cities where hard-won enclaves of acceptance were being hollowed out, one sunken-eyed friend after another. Media screamed “Gay...

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Robin Hood. The Legend. Re-written, Regent's Park Open Air Theatre review - no bullseye for new take on familiar characters

After the pantos, the movies (epic, camp and animated) and the television series, is there anything new to be mined in the story of Robin Hood? Probably not, as this messy, misjudged show takes that hope and fires an arrow through its heart.We’re in...

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Antigone, Regent's Park Open Air Theatre review - Sophocles rewritten with purpose and panache

Antigone, the forceful young woman who takes on the male establishment, has long resonated with idealists; Sophocles' play, written about 441 BCE, has been revived and adapted frequently, often reflecting different times and causes. Among others,...

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101 Dalmatians, Regent's Park Open Air Theatre review - puppets rule in patchy musical

There's further training, shall we say, still needed on 101 Dalmatians, the much-delayed show that marks the second consecutive musical this summer at the Open Air Theatre, Regent's Park, following their revisionist Legally Blonde.A busy, bustling...

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Legally Blonde, Regent's Park Open Air Theatre review - a joyous Gen-Z musical makeover

The 2001 Reese Witherspoon-starring film Legally Blonde, upon which Heather Hach, Laurence O’Keefe and Nell Benjamin’s peppy Broadway musical is based, was something of a Trojan horse: a bubblegum-pink comedy with a feminist spine.Now Lucy Moss, co-...

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Carousel, Regent's Park Open Air Theatre review - brave rewrite doesn't land

You've got to hand it to the Open Air Theatre in Regent's Park: this venue never simply dusts off a familiar musical title and plonks it onstage. Their commitment to reinvestigating the material, whatever it is, has done wonders for the...

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Theatre Unlocked 4: Shows in concert and a contemporary classic comes to TV

After months spent sifting amongst the virtual, I'm pleased to report that live performance looks to be on the (socially distanced) rebound. The week ahead sees the start of a six-week run at the Open Air Theatre in Regent's Park of the alfresco...

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Evita, Regent's Park Open Air Theatre review - a diva dictator for 2019

Following a triumphant resurrection of Jesus Christ Superstar, now playing at the Barbican, the Park works its magic on another of Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice’s Seventies rock operas. Jamie Lloyd’s stripped-down, super-sleek, contemporary take...

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Hansel and Gretel, ENO, Regent's Park Open Air Theatre review - into the broomstick woods

Shoving a child-eating drag-queen witch into an oven can't be good for any kid's psyche. Director Timothy Sheader doesn't let us forget it in a production which nevertheless treads a fine line between the darkness of the Grimm story and the...

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First Person: Ellen McDougall on finding the commonality in the American classic 'Our Town'

I’ve wanted to direct Thornton Wilder’s Our Town for a long time.The play is beautifully written and its form feels not only ahead of its time (it was written in 1938), but also extremely powerful for a contemporary audience in an open air...

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Little Shop of Horrors, Regent's Park Open Air Theatre review - monstrously entertaining

The resplendent partnership of Alan Menken and Howard Ashman – which produced Disney hits Aladdin, Beauty and the Beast and The Little Mermaid – first took root with this 1982 Off-Broadway musical, based on a low-budget Sixties film, about a...

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As You Like It, Regent's Park Open Air Theatre review - love among the bucolic hippies

It's been raining in Regent's Park. On a balmy summer evening during a prolonged dry spell – perfect for outdoor theatrics – it seems ironic to tempt fate by creating artificial downpours and thunderstorms. But this music-filled, modern-dress...

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