musicals
Matt Wolf
Theatres will begin gently unlocking their doors as we head into August. In the meantime, a beleaguered community continues to find fresh and startling ways to sustain interest and excitement, whether that be the premiere of a new play starring Andrew Scott at the Old Vic or a pictorial tour round long-shuttered playhouses from the photographer Helen Murray. The American composer Jason Robert Brown is back on view yet again, this time with a revival of his earliest show as performed by a high-voltage musical theatre cast, and one of the most celebrated theatres in the world livestreams a show Read more ...
Theatre Lockdown Special 13: Early Lloyd Webber, vintage Rattigan, and a Dame or two in conversation
Matt Wolf
Stop the presses! For the first time in nearly four months, The Arts Desk can point to the first of several live theatre events amongst the highlights of the coming week: the tour across the nation's car parks to multiple drive-in audiences of Horrible Histories: Barmy Britain, a previous West End mainstay that has adapted with these strange times. Those preferring simply to stay put will be rewarded with a typically motley array of theatre fare, ranging from an ageless Donny Osmond as Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice's often scantily clad Joseph and the Medea story repositioned once again to Read more ...
Marianka Swain
The movie adaptation of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s In the Heights was meant to hit cinemas this summer, but, in response to Covid-19, has been put back to 2021. Instead, we get the early release on Disney+ of Miranda’s Hamilton – filmed, NT Live style, with the original Broadway cast at three performances in June 2016, and now available to a wide audience for the first time. Who could say no to this? Stage director Thomas Kail also helms the film, and the result is an exhilarating, immersive experience of this dynamic musical about America’s forgotten Founding Father, who travels from Read more ...
Marianka Swain
A musical featuring two people who are physically separated? Jason Robert Brown’s work is a shutdown natural – as this new digital theatre version demonstrates. Lauren Samuels and Danny Becker, who play doomed lovers Cathy and Jamie, recorded their parts entirely in isolation, with Samuels (previously starring as Cathy in 2011 at Chiswick Playhouse) also directing.The result is a piece that firmly retains its theatrical DNA – in contrast to the Anna Kendrick and Jeremy Jordan-starring movie adaptation, which changed up the format to have the characters sharing space. Of course, current social Read more ...
Matt Wolf
The government may occupy shifting sands when it comes to handling Covid-19, but the arts thank heavens continue to step up to the plate with a dizzying array of online options. This week's output mixes a soul musical from 1970s Broadway alongside a major revival of a play by Alan Bennett whose enquiry into the psychological well-being of those in charge will doubtless resonate anew today.Not to be forgotten is a tiny west London venue that consistently punches above its weight, alongside a slice of something more radical coming soon to a continent near you. This quartet represents just the Read more ...
Matt Wolf
As we continue into a third month in lockdown, the arts continue to suggest ever-changing worlds beyond. The invaluable National Theatre at Home this week looks across the Thames to a smaller venue's large-scale Coriolanus, starring a certain superhero movie icon, whilst the equally cherished Graeae streams their lively musical theatre tribute to the late Ian Dury. Beauty and the Beast, from a Chichester ensemble of young people, reminds us of the durability of that tale as old as time, even as The Shows Must Go On continues to look beyond Andrew Lloyd Webber to other musical mainstays, this Read more ...
Matt Wolf
The live-ness of theatre seems further away with every passing week, but at least the art form itself lives on to tantalise and entertain, whetting the appetite until such day as we are sharing an auditorium once again. National Theatre at Home continues to lead from the front with a tantalising array of offerings, this week bringing to the fore the busy James Graham in his comparative creative infancy with This House. Throw in a trio of Broadway-related events to keep musical theatre mavens happy, and you've got a quartet worth multiple digital platform visits. Jerry Herman: You I Like Read more ...
Joseph Walsh
Nisha Ganatra’s musical dramedy, penned by first time screenwriter Flora Greeson, isn’t going to win any prizes for originality and is almost unforgivably corny. But the feel-good vibes and winning combination of Tracee Ellis Ross and Dakota Johnson are still likely to win audiences over.Ross has been acting since the mid-90s, but has experienced a low-key renaissance in recent years, partly due to her role in Kenya Barris’ award-winning show, Black-ish. Of course, being the daughter of Motown legend Diana Ross and top music exec Robert Ellis Silberstein, she knows the music biz through and Read more ...
Marianka Swain
Cats is, declares composer Andrew Lloyd Webber, a show that doesn’t really have a story, but was beloved on stage because it’s “the ultimate theatrical experience”. That’s the point which Tom Hooper’s grotesque, nightmarish movie adaptation so profoundly missed, with its computer-generated monstrosities and ham-fisted attempts at miring this fanciful material in leaden reality – albeit one in which relative size warps every second, and Judi Dench wears the carcass of another cat.A great relief, then, to revisit Cats as it was meant to be seen – still inarguably eccentric, but with a clear Read more ...
Matt Wolf
No one can accuse the gods of streaming of failing to cast a wide net. That's even more so with an array of streaming opportunities over the next week that ranges from Off West End Ibsen given a second chance to shine to an online encounter with, yes, The Encounter, and, should you wish, with its protean creator and leading man, as well. There's a reminder onhand of a time before the recent film of Cats when a furry Rebel Wilson wasn't yet a collective memory, while the National's much-traveled Barber Shop Chronicles journeys this time right into your home. For more on these various Read more ...
Matt Wolf
Has anyone else noticed how fulltime this streaming thing has become? Those who were of a mind to (and who never slept) could find enough cultural output to satisfy 24/7, especially if one adds to the free offerings that crop up by the week the ongoing back catalogue made available on sites such as Marquee TV or Digital Theatre, and the like. While those platforms continue to roam freely across productions and even art forms, each week brings with it a fresh supply of intriguing fare. This week's lineup includes curiosities from the very different minds of Andrew Lloyd Webber and David Read more ...
Matt Wolf
Time is moving in mysterious ways at the moment. It's been possible over the last month or so to mark out the beginning of each week with the arrival online of a different production streaming from the Hampstead Theatre archives. The National, meanwhile, does its change-over of offerings on a Thursday (Frankenstein, see below, begins tonight), while the RSC and Shakespeare's Globe have enough material between them to satisfy the most ardent Shakespearean and newbies to the Bard alike. What's fun is when these stalwarts are joined by more unpredictable offerings, several of which are itemised Read more ...