musicals
From Here to Eternity, Shaftesbury TheatreThursday, 24 October 2013
“Love and pain is like peace and war - you want one you have to have the other.” It’s a line that pretty much sums up From Here to Eternity. The title of James Jones’s novel and the classic movie which it spawned gets rather lost in the new musical... Read more... |
The Light Princess, National TheatreThursday, 10 October 2013
Once upon a time, there were two cultures, and they were at odds. A forested wilderness stretches between the kingdoms of Sealand and Lagobel, as we glean from the childishly-drawn, giant map that serves as a front cloth for the NT's new musical... Read more... |
Sunshine on LeithFriday, 04 October 2013
There will be some who will sneer at this film, but ignore them. Director Dexter Fletcher has fashioned a wonderfully enjoyable movie from a play by Stephen Greenhorn (who also wrote the script), in which a good-natured story about family, love and... Read more... |
Secret Voices of Hollywood, BBC FourMonday, 30 September 2013
They called Rita Moreno the triple threat – she could dance, act and sing. But even her spirited performance as Anita in West Side Story could not satisfy United Artists: the doomy low notes of "A Boy Like That" were considered out of her range, and... Read more... |
The Lightning Child, Shakespeare's GlobeThursday, 19 September 2013
Having boundaries actually sets us free. So Neil Armstrong's wife argues. She is dogmatically keen to stop her husband rocketing off to the moon in the first scene of The Lightning Child – a groundbreaking show in so far as it's the first musical to... Read more... |
theartsdesk Q&A: Actress Sheridan SmithSunday, 15 September 2013
There’s a song in the musical version of Legally Blonde, in which peroxide ditz Elle celebrates her impending good fortune. “Oh my god, oh my god, you guys,” she sings exultantly as she prepares to accept her beau’s proposal of marriage. Since... Read more... |
Liolà, National TheatreThursday, 08 August 2013
Sicilian location, Irish populace, Balkan Roma music: Richard Eyre’s production of a Pirandello bagatelle could easily have turned into the kind of Europudding more common in cinema. That it fairly dances over the pitfalls is due partly to a well-... Read more... |
The Sound of Music, Regent's Park Open Air TheatreTuesday, 06 August 2013
Over in Southwark you can currently find Rodgers and Hammerstein exploring the seamier side of life among the prostitutes and drop-outs of Pipe Dream, but in the woody amphitheatre of the Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre it’s all raindrops on roses... Read more... |
Pipe Dream, Union TheatreSunday, 04 August 2013
Rodgers and Steinbeck: sound unlikely? Well, self-proclaimed “family show” man Hammerstein may have baulked at words like "whorehouse" when he created a play for music out of Steinbeck’s Cannery Row and Sweet Thursday. But by 1955 the R&H duo... Read more... |
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Theatre Royal Drury LaneWednesday, 26 June 2013
It’s all stick and no lollipop, a chocolate box stuffed with nothing but empty wrappers: what a walloping letdown this intensely anticipated musical based on Roald Dahl’s perennially popular 1964 children’s book turns out to be.With songs by Scott... Read more... |
theartsdesk Q&A: Songwriters Marc Shaiman and Scott WittmanSaturday, 15 June 2013
There is no formula for creating a hit musical. If there were, the history of the West End and Broadway would not be haunted by the many ghosts of bygone disasters. Let us not list them here. The lack of a roadmap notwithstanding, the long-awaited... Read more... |
Barbra Streisand, O2 ArenaSunday, 02 June 2013
It opened with a standing ovation. And in a place the size of the 02 – the venue put on this earth to make Luton airport feel better – that’s impressive. It was that kind of evening: not so much Streisand in concert as an opportunity for worshippers... Read more... |
