Don't bother, they're here
Shakespeare’s Globe has revealed the season of shows that will begin on 19th May in accordance with the government’s roadmap. Social distancing measures will be implemented so performances will featured limited audience capacity for an initial period. Continue reading “News: Shakespeare’s Globe reveals 2021 season”
Continue reading “One Show More – good news for theatre but…”
“Minutes into hours, and the hours into years”
Striding over the barricades to alleviate lockdown tedium, Les Misérables – The Staged Concert has now been released on digital download. The release will raise funds for performers, musicians and the NHS as well as incurring additional donations (an extra £5 for every purchase) from The Mackintosh Foundation which will go to the charity Acting for Others, the Musicians Union Coronavirus Hardship Fund and Captain Tom Moore’s Walk for the NHS fund
You can actually watch Bringing It Home – A Les Miz Stay at Home Special below but I thought I’d give you fair warning as it has its pros and cons. Continue reading “Lockdown review: Les Misérables – The Staged Concert”
“Just call me the Soviet cowboy”
Try as I might, the words ‘rock musical’ can’t help but give me a little shiver of discontent, such is my preference for piano and strings over an electric guitar. But I do try and test my preconceptions (Lizzie probably being the last time I proved myself wrong!) and so I sat down to listen to recent SimG release – Comrade Rockstar, a new musical with book & lyrics by Julian Woolford and music by Richard John.
It’s based on the properly fascinating tale of Dean Reed, an American singer known as the Soviet Elvis after he defected to the other side of the Iron Curtain at the height of the Cold War. And sure enough, it is much more musically varied than the moniker ‘rock musical’ might suggest, stretching its wings far past any connotations of solely Elvis-lite content too, to create a gently beguiling musical that you can certainly visualise on a stage somewhere near you soon. Continue reading “Album Review: Comrade Rockstar (2017 Studio Cast Recording)”
Best Actor in a New Production of a Musical
Michael Xavier – Sunset Boulevard – London Coliseum
Best Actor in a New Production of a Play
Ian McKellen – No Man’s Land – Wyndham’s Theatre
Best Actress in a New Production of a Musical
Carrie Hope Fletcher – Chitty Chitty Bang Bang – UK Tour
Best Actress in a New Production of a Play
Billie Piper – Yerma – Young Vic
Best Choreography of a New Production of a Play or Musical
Polly Bennett – People, Places and Things – Wyndham’s Theatre
Best Costume Design of a New Production of a Play or Musical
Gregg Barnes – Aladdin – Prince Edward Theatre
Best Direction of a New Production of a Musical
Matthew Warchus – Groundhog Day – Old Vic
Best Direction of a New Production of a Play
Adam Penford – The Boys in the Band – Park Theatre
Best Lighting Design of a New Production of a Play or Musical
Hugh Vanstone – Groundhog Day – Old Vic
Best Long-running West End Show
Les Miserables – Queen’s Theatre
Best Long-running West End Show Performer (Female)
Katy Secombe – Les Miserables – Queen’s Theatre
Best Long-running West End Show Performer (Male)
Craige Els – Matilda the Musical – Cambridge Theatre
Best New London Fringe Production
I’m Getting My Act Together and Taking It on the Road – Jermyn Street Theatre
Best New Play
Annie Baker – The Flick – National Theatre
Best New Production of a Musical
In the Heights – King’s Cross Theatre
Best New Regional Production
Half a Sixpence – Chichester Festival Theatre
Best Revival of a Musical
Show Boat – New London Theatre
Best Revival of a Play
A Midsummer Night’s Dream – Shakespeare’s Globe
Best Set Design of a New Production of a Play or Musical
Rob Howell – Groundhog Day – Old Vic
Best Supporting Actor in a New Production of a Musical
David Bedella – In the Heights – King’s Cross Theatre
Best Supporting Actor in a New Production of a Play
Tom Burke – The Deep Blue Sea – National Theatre
Best Supporting Actress in a New Production of a Musical
Victoria Hamilton-Barritt – In the Heights – King’s Cross Theatre
Best Supporting Actress in a New Production of a Play
Natalie Simpson – Hamlet – Royal Shakespeare Theatre
Outstanding Achievement in a New Dance Production
Drew McOnie – Jekyll & Hyde – Old Vic
Outstanding Achievement in a New Opera Production
Iris – Opera Holland Park
Theatrical Event of the Year
Groundhog Day – Old Vic
Theatrical Venue of the Year
Arts Theatre
Understudy of the Year in Any Play or Musical (Female)
Alice Stokoe – American Idiot – Arts Theatre
Understudy of the Year in Any Play or Musical (Male)
Cellen Chugg Jones – American Idiot – Arts Theatre
“It’s a no, it’s a yes, it’s a no from me”
One of the most profitable television franchises in the UK, a much-loved comedian writing the book, a £6 million budget…there’s clearly considerable heft behind the latest musical to establish itself in the London Palladium. But the marriage of Harry Hill’s bizarre comic sensibility, Steve Brown’s bright if hollow score and the ITV juggernaut that is the X-Factor makes for uneasy bedfellows, Sean Foley’s garish production eschewing any kind of subtlety for the broadest kind of populist swoop.
I Can’t Sing is a show that constantly wants to have its cake and eat it. Faux-Dermot presenter Liam O’Deary gets a laugh by exasperating at one point “I don’t know why you might be charged” when the phone lines have closed, presumably the response “because they continue to make money for the production company” was mixed in previews. The TV show’s heavy reliance on tear-jerking backstories is a running gag yet nothing dispels the myth that that is the way to get noticed on a talent show. Likewise the qualifications of the panel to be judges of a popular music contest are skewered yet they remain feted as a special brand of celebrity. Continue reading “Review: I Can’t Sing, Palladium Theatre”
Last week’s post proved surprisingly popular so here’s another one for you. You can find below Gary Wood revisiting A Chorus Line with ‘What I Did For Love’, a preview from The Pajama Game with Michael Xavier & Joanna Riding singing ‘Hey There’, Shayne Ward & Louise Dearman giving their take on ‘Falling Slowly’ from Once, Angela Lansbury showing why her reputation is as it is with a lovely rendition of ‘Beauty & The Beast’ (though it still doesn’t excuse the applause on entry and standing o’s), and a clip of ‘I Can’t Sing’ which is mainly fascinating to those who have seen the show as it shows the amount of tinkering there has been. Continue reading “Saturday afternoon music treats”
“Some people are happy and some people are lonely, mean and sad. You strike me as the second kind”
Families – who’d have ‘em? Not Ben Lyons that’s for sure, as in his upscale New York private hospital room where his terminal cancer has reached crisis point, the cacophony that arises when his wife and two children are around his bed is enough to make anyone reach for the morphine button. Nicky Silver’s Broadway hit The Lyons, transferred here to the Menier Chocolate Factory, is one of the most vicious and spikiest dark comedies you’ll see all year – this isn’t so much a family united in tragedy as further shattered by it.
It’s occasionally cruel, it’s sometimes funny, more often than not it is cruelly funny – audacious in the jabs that these people make towards their ‘nearest and dearest’. Isla Blair’s Rita is sat by the bed planning how to redecorate the living room and the sibling rivalry between Charlotte Randle’s daughter Lisa, in an alcohol-recovery programme with a turbulent relationship history, and Tom Ellis’ son Curtis, shunned by his father due to his sexuality and with his own unique relationship problems, starts from the minute they arrive at the hospital, warring over the size of their respective gifts. Continue reading “Review: The Lyons, Menier Chocolate Factory”