musicals
Grand Hotel, Southwark PlayhouseFriday, 07 August 2015
Never in a million years would you guess that Grand Hotel – the 1989 New York hit now brilliantly revived at Southwark Playhouse – is one of Broadway's great rescue jobs. That something seemingly so organic, so cohesive, so intricate could have... Read more... |
Of Thee I Sing, RFHFriday, 31 July 2015
Satire may famously be what on Broadway closes Saturday night, but last night's concert performance of the Gershwin brothers' Of Thee I Sing found many patrons fleeing the Festival Hall at the interval. The culprit lay in sound issues that... Read more... |
Prom 11: Fiddler on the Roof, Grange Park OperaSunday, 26 July 2015
Stop miking Bryn Terfel. Stop over-miking musicals; the show voices in a hybrid cast don’t need much. Too much ruined English National Opera’s recent Sweeney Todd, and in this Proms adaptation of Grange Park Opera’s summer crowd-pleaser it sent the... Read more... |
What's It All About?, Menier Chocolate FactoryFriday, 17 July 2015
Burt Bacharach, existentialist? That's among the surprising thoughts prompted by the searchingly titled What's It All About?, the altogether delightful but also touching musical revue that trawls Bacharach's back catalogue – and that on opening... Read more... |
The House of Mirrors & Hearts, ArcolaThursday, 09 July 2015
Musicals are cheesy by nature, aren’t they? If not cheesy, then picturesque. The cast of Les Mis may be grimy and poor, but they’re picture-postcard poor. Even modern musicals play by the rules.But Aemonn O’Dwyer and Rob Gilbert break most of them... Read more... |
London RoadFriday, 12 June 2015
So many plays and musicals are adapted from films (Bend it Like Beckham is up next) that it comes as something of a throwback to find a film that takes as its source an acclaimed musical play. The sheer fact that there is a movie of London Road is... Read more... |
DVD: The Dancing Years, The RatTuesday, 09 June 2015
The Dancing Years and The Rat are seemingly very different films. The Dancing Years (***, 1950) is a British musical which defines frou-frou. With a springing-off point in the dizzy world of the waltz-obsessed Vienna of 1910, its lingering shots of... Read more... |
CD: Muse - DronesSaturday, 06 June 2015
Almost a decade ago, I went to a disappointing festival in Holland. Driven to distraction by the crowd – a sixth-form disco stuck between the third and fourth circles of Dante's inferno – I, on the advice of a friend, went to see Muse. Their... Read more... |
Fiddler on the Roof, Grange Park OperaFriday, 05 June 2015
Many matches are made in Fiddler on the Roof but the matchmaking prize goes to Grange Park Opera for getting Bryn Terfel to take on the role of Tevye. Having only recently played Sweeney Todd, and indeed throughout a varied... Read more... |
How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, RFHWednesday, 20 May 2015
Frank Loesser seems to be known in Britain for one show and one show only, which seems a shame given that the composer-lyricist of Guys and Dolls has a CV that includes the ravishing The Most Happy Fella and his 1962 Pulitzer prize-winning How to... Read more... |
High Society, Old Vic TheatreFriday, 15 May 2015
It took approximately 30 years for High Society to first make its laborious transition from screen to stage and there are good reasons for that. The indelible impression left by the movie and its star, Grace Kelly, was undoubtedly the biggest, and... Read more... |
Follies, Royal Albert HallWednesday, 29 April 2015
God love Christine Baranski: Eight years after the Tony and Emmy-winning actress played the supporting role of Carlotta Campion in a semi-staged 2007 production of Stephen Sondheim's Follies in New York, along came the leggy, eternally lithe... Read more... |
