musicals
Edinburgh Fringe: The Boy With Tape on His Face/ Barbershopera/ Tom AllenFriday, 20 August 2010
This is a show of such originality and inventiveness that I will struggle to convey just how much fun it is to watch a man perform sight gags and physical comedy for an hour - and who does indeed appear throughout with a strip of black gaffer tape... Read more... |
The Seckerson Tapes: Kerry Ellis InterviewFriday, 20 August 2010
Kerry Ellis amassed a legion of adoring fans when she went "green" playing Elphaba in Stephen Schwartz's smash-hit musical both in London and on Broadway. But her pre-eminence as a musical-theatre-diva-cum-rock-chick was secured earlier still when... Read more... |
Into the Woods, Regent's Park Open Air TheatreMonday, 16 August 2010
Sometimes people leave you halfway through the wood. Sondheim meant that in a life-and-death kind of way, but it applied literally to this ingenious show at the autumnal August preview I attended. Some folk thought Act One’s knitting-up of... Read more... |
Edinburgh Fringe: Celia Pacquola/ Could It Be Forever?/ Sammy JMonday, 16 August 2010
Celia Pacquola made her Fringe debut last year after storming various comedy festivals in her native Australia with a show about her boyfriend’s infidelity and, while it was entertaining enough, it lacked a bit of oomph. But her new show packs a... Read more... |
theartsdesk MOT: Les Misérables, Queen's TheatreFriday, 13 August 2010
For most people a 25th anniversary is cause for celebration – a party, a dinner, maybe a few speeches. If you are musical theatre phenomenon Les Misérables however, festivities operate on an entirely different scale. London struggles to support two... Read more... |
Sister Act, London PalladiumFriday, 13 August 2010
You can't move in London for American performers, whether it's the Yankee contingent of The Bridge Project at the Old Vic, or the presence at various addresses of Mercedes Ruehl, Jeff Goldblum, Glee star (and erstwhile Tony nominee) Jonathan Groff,... Read more... |
Edinburgh Fringe: Tiffany Stevenson/ Fair Trade/ Gutted: A Revenger's MusicalWednesday, 11 August 2010
After making her Edinburgh debut last year, Tiffany Stevenson returns with another cracking show, Dictators. Ostensibly it’s about Mao, Hitler, Pol Pot, et al, but in reality she cleverly manages to do a show about the mother-daughter relationship... Read more... |
Stephen Sondheim at 80, Royal Albert HallSunday, 01 August 2010
Everybody in the business says don’t think Sondheim is easy. I’ve seen galas where big names stumbled in under-rehearsed numbers, and last night Bryn Terfel and Maria Friedman slipped and almost fell on the same banana skins that had done for... Read more... |
theartsdesk MOT: The Phantom of the Opera, Her Majesty's TheatreFriday, 30 July 2010
With summer now fully upon us, and tourists flocking to the West End, it seems a good time to lift the bonnet on the tireless engine of London’s long-running hit shows. Over the next six weeks theartsdesk will be giving six of London’s hardest-... Read more... |
Pygmalion, Chichester Festival TheatreTuesday, 20 July 2010
Revivals of George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion are generally too busy making an artistic case for the play over the My Fair Lady musical to worry about listening out for contemporary resonances. But in many ways Simon Cowell is the Henry Higgins of our... Read more... |
Aspects of Love, Menier Chocolate FactoryThursday, 15 July 2010
The Menier Chocolate Factory could scarcely be on mightier form, or so it seems, punching far beyond its weight as a small, out-of-the-way south London playhouse that is nonetheless responsible at the moment for five commercial transfers between... Read more... |
The Bernstein Project - Mass, Royal Festival HallMonday, 12 July 2010
It's been quite a week for youth and the vernacular in the world of so-called “classical” music. Multiply by four the seven fledgling stage animals currently firing up John Adams’s “earthquake-romance” in London's East End, add an orchestra of 13-to... Read more... |
