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News: Make Your Own Musicals launches pantomime activity packs

Make Your Own Musicals, a company started in lockdown, has been making musical activity packs for children to write their own original mini-musicals at home. Now, for the festive season, they are branching out into family pantomime packs to fill the void many families will be feeling this year.

Make Your Own Musicals was designed as a way of offering original theatrical activities for children to do at home. Each activity pack contains child friendly writing guides, original backing tracks, and corresponding sound effects, as well as fun extra pages such as print-out tickets and cut-out costumes and props. The packs are crafted to inspire confidence and creativity at a time when it can seem hard to find. Continue reading “News: Make Your Own Musicals launches pantomime activity packs”

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News: You Will Be Found by #CheerUpCharlie & West End Friends to be released on 15th November

Auburn Jam Music are delighted to be releasing ‘You Will Be Found’ by #CheerUpCharlie & West End Friends, a fundraising charity single in aid of youth charity The Diana Award, on Sunday 15 November to tie in with the start of National Anti-Bullying Week (16-20 November).  

The star-studded single is led by ten-year-old Charlie Kristensen from Wokingham, whose experience of being bullied started the viral #CheerUpCharlie campaign. Charlie is joined on the song by numerous stage and screen stars including Wendi Peters, Layton Williams and Michael Xavier, with Iain Armitage, Michael Ball, Rufus Hound, and Faye Tozer amongst many famous faces reading their supportive messages on the song’s video. The single is available to pre-save now on iTunes, Deezer, Spotify and Tidal at https://ditto.fm/you-will-be-found. Continue reading “News: You Will Be Found by #CheerUpCharlie & West End Friends to be released on 15th November”

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News: even more black MT talent turning it up for TURN UP!

Theatrical superstars Sharon D. Clarke, Noma Dumezweni, Clive Rowe, Kwame Kwei-Armah, Johnnie Fiore, Brenda Edwards, Zaris-Angel Hator, Rachel Adedeji, Aisha Jawando, Norm Lewis, Brittney Johnson, Brandi Chavonne Massey and Joe Aaron Reid and more join the lineup for TURN UP! , a live stream event supporting the Black Lives Matter movement.

The live stream event is streaming for The Bail Project, The Okra Project, The Black Curriculum and UK Black Pride – in support of the Black Lives Matter movement.

TURN UP! will stream on Friday 10th, Saturday 11th and Sunday 12th July at 7.30pm prompt.  The performance streamed on Sunday 12th July will be captioned. Tickets cost £10 for one stream/show, or you can watch all 3 nights for £25, all profit (after streaming costs and applicable taxes) will be split between our four charities, tickets are available now from club11.london/turn. Continue reading “News: even more black MT talent turning it up for TURN UP!”

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News: Line-up announced for Elliot Davis virtual concert

The Barn Theatre has announced that Busted and Son of Dork co-founder James Bourne will join an all-star West End line up for their third virtual concert, The Barn Theatre Presents: The Music of Elliot Davis, which will celebrate the work of Loserville composer Elliot Davis.

The concert, which will be hosted by Barn Theatre producer Jamie Chapman Dixon, is the third edition of the Barn Theatre in Cirencester’s virtual concert series, The Barn Presents, which celebrates the work of British musical theatre composers. Continue reading “News: Line-up announced for Elliot Davis virtual concert”

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The winners of the 7th annual Mousetrap Awards

Best Feel Good Show
Kinky Boots

Show You Came Out Dancing To
Five Guys Named Moe

Best Female Performer
Rachel John for Hamilton

Most Heart Stopping Show
The Ferryman

Soundtrack of My Soul
Hamilton

Best Male Performer
Layton Williams for Rent

Best Finale
Kinky Boots

Aesthetic On Point
The Grinning Man

Performer Who Saved The Day
Adam Bayjou for Les Mis

Couldn’t Wait For It To Open
Five Guys Named Moe

Best Ensemble
Hamilton

Friendliest Venue
The Old Vic

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Not-a-re-review: Hamilton, Victoria Palace

“The plan is to fan this spark into a flame”

It’s not been a hot minute since I last saw Hamilton so just take a look at my original review for the deets.

Running time: 2 hours 35 minutes (with interval)
Booking note – keep your eyes open for returns, of which there have been quite a few.  And check your browsers, the Ticketmaster site is most temperamental with the likes of Opera, Firefox and Chrome in my experience, Microsoft’s Edge has been most reliable for me

 

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Review: Hamilton, Victoria Palace

It’s here! Hamilton finally arrives in the West End and lights up the newly refurbished Victoria Palace Theatre for the ages

“A bunch of revolutionary manumission abolitionists, 

Give me a position, show me where the ammunition is”

Change doesn’t just happen, it has to be ushered in by visionaries determined to shake up the status quo to allow the rest of us to shuffle in in their wake. This is true of many things but particularly when it comes to diversity in our theatres, which makes it pleasing that this first production of Hamilton outside of the US has maintained its commitment to multiracial casting in its depiction of the travails of ill-fated Founding Father Alexander Hamilton.

Sure, shows such as Motown the Musical and Dreamgirls offer much-welcomed opportunities for performers of colour. But its the vision of the likes of Michael Buffong and Talawa casting an all-black Guys and Dolls and Hamilton writer Lin-Manuel Miranda and director Thomas Kail making this decision that allows those performers to get the kind of credits on their CV that would otherwise never be gained. Continue reading “Review: Hamilton, Victoria Palace”

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Review: Sunset Boulevard, London Coliseum

“Has there ever been a moment
With so much to live for?” 

Dammit – one of the key rationales behind my Broadway blowout last winter was seeing actors I didn’t think I’d otherwise have the chance to see in the West End, Glenn Close being chief among them and thus I forked out a pretty penny to see her in Edward Albee’s A Delicate Balance. So naturally her return to these shores was announced a few months later with a reprisal of her Tony Award-winning performance as Norma Desmond in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Sunset Boulevard.

And as with last year’s Sweeney Todd here at the Coliseum too, director Lonny Price and the ENO have returned to the semi-staged format which allows them to mount a bare-bones production and still charge full whack for tickets, prices thus go up to £150. I understand that money has to be made, especially for an organisation in as perilous a position as theirs and they say at least 400 tickets at every performance is available at £25 or under (altitude training not provided though…) Continue reading “Review: Sunset Boulevard, London Coliseum”