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TV Review: Waking the Dead Series 7

Series 7 of Waking the Dead continues its golden era, with a walloping personal impact for Boyd 

“I wish you never found that body”

The introduction of George Rainsford as Boyd’s son Luke was a really ballsy move from Waking the Dead.  His disappearance has long been a driver for Boyd’s every action, particularly in cases where missing children were involved, so you knew that Luke’s return would be noteworthy to say the least.

But I don’t think anyone would have predicted where Series 7 would take us. With Luke still deep in the throes of drug addiction and Boyd unwilling or unable to ask for help, there’s a deeply tragic trajectory to their relationship, ultimately proving desperately devastating in the final episodes. Continue reading “TV Review: Waking the Dead Series 7”

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Not an Album Review: Taboo (Original London Cast)

“My father said: ‘don’t panic, it’s a phase’
‘Phase one’ I said”

I did want to love Boy George’s Taboo, I really did, but something about it just holds me back. I felt that way when I saw it live and I felt it again when listening to the original London cast recording so there you have it.

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Review: Honk!, Tabard

“Did you leave him in the egg too long?”

Two years ago, the Tabard Theatre revived Stiles and Drewe’s Just So for their festive show and it is to these composers that they return in 2012 with this production of Honk! A musical adaptation of the classic Hans Christian Andersen fairytale The Ugly Duckling, it follows the fortunes of a duckling, cruelly nicknamed Ugly by all around him save his mother, who looks different to the other ducks in the yard. When he ends up lost, frightened and alone, he is forced to make a personal odyssey but even as he is constantly threatened by a voracious cat and scary big humans, he also finds that there’s a big wide world outside of the barnyard where others are not quite so quick to judge.

The score is one of Stiles and Drewe’s most accomplished and lyrically, it has a deceptive simplicity which allows for layers of interpretation making it an ideal family show. Joe Sterling’s nerdish Ugly goes on a powerful journey of self-discovery – characterised by moving renditions of songs like ‘Different’ and ‘Lost’ – even before his revelatory transformation; Kathryn Rutherford’s compassionate Ida is a beautiful study in maternal determination; and even in the unlikely pairing of a cat and a chicken as flatmates, there’s a lovely message of tolerance, especially when it is performed with such show-stealing verve as by Kate Scott and Lydia Grant. Continue reading “Review: Honk!, Tabard”

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Re-review: Ghost the musical, Piccadilly Theatre

“It’s just relief to suspend my disbelief”

It feels a bit like I’m cursed when it comes to Ghost the Musical. I booked it at the beginning of the year to see the original cast before they went to Broadway and Sharon D Clarke injured herself so I missed her and this time round, eager to see Mark Evans’ acting and musical talent / damn fine abs *delete as appropriate, we arrived at the theatre to find his understudy was on. It is not the end of the world when that happens of course but it is sometimes a disappointment when one is looking forward to seeing a particular person (though it helps that there’s videos like this to fall back on) and as it turned out, when I saw the name of the understudy – Spencer O’Brien – I was actually quite pleased as he is someone I have great residual affection for as he was in the cast of the superlative Salad Days the Christmas before last.

And though my feelings about the show were decidedly mixed when I saw it last – review here – I’d listened to the soundtrack quite a bit since then and discovered that it really is a grower. I really like a good proportion of it and so was quite happy to revisit the show, with the bonus of a new cast and a companion that had not seen it before, and in the end I found that I actually enjoyed it much more. The key for me and the soundtrack helped immensely here, is to think of it as a chamber musical, a small intimate piece essentially for four characters, and let the rest simply glide by in a rush of neon light and slow-motion walking.   Continue reading “Re-review: Ghost the musical, Piccadilly Theatre”