Olivia Cox, Author at North West End UK

20Dec

By Olivia CoxNo Comments

London

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof – Almeida Theatre

Hot off two acclaimed productions of Tennessee Williams’s Summer and Smoke and A Streetcar Named Desire, Rebecca Frecknall and the Almeida Theatre are reunited once more in her new staging of three-act play Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. But can she make it a hat trick? One of Williams’s most famous plays — and reportedly his favourite — Cat on a Hot Tin Roof tackles family dysfunction, falsehoods, and the fear of death. Gathering for patriarch Big Daddy’s (Lennie James) 65th birthday, alcoholic son Brick (Kingsley Ben-Adir) and rags-to-riches wife Maggie (Daisy Edgar-Jones) confront their crumbling relationship amid a web of lies about Big Daddy’s ailing health. Having undergone recent tests, Big Daddy and Big Mama (Clare Burt) have been told he’s in the clear. It’s only his children who know ...

7Dec

By Olivia CoxNo Comments

London

Bill – Omnibus Theatre

In the age of disinformation, Red Fox Theatre has put together a musical comedy to tell the story of the man who started it all: Milton William ‘Bill’ Cooper. I must admit, I wasn’t actually familiar with Cooper myself before watching Bill, so I was looking forward to learning something new — and about such an incredibly timely subject. Bill isn’t a straightforward autobiographical show. Describing themselves as practitioners of ‘Chaos Theatre’, Red Fox Theatre bring us a suitably bonkers retelling of one of America’s most notorious conspiracy theorists. There’s music, puppetry, physical comedy, parodies and more — it’s a ‘kitchen sink’ style approach to storytelling that I am pretty much always a fan of. Sometimes the chaos can make it tricky to follow the thread of the stor...

The Devil Wears Prada – Dominion Theatre

6Dec

By Olivia CoxNo Comments

London

The Devil Wears Prada – Dominion Theatre

Gird your loins and dust off your chicest cerulean garb: The Devil Wears Prada has strutted its way onto the West End. The 2006 comedy-drama movie retains a legion of fans nearly twenty years on, with a sequel reportedly on the horizon. This leaves the musical — with a book by Kate Wetherhead, lyrics by Shaina Taub & Mark Sonnenblick, and music by Elton John — with big stilettos to fill. Its first iteration in Chicago back in 2022 received middling reviews, which begs the question: has its London premiere had enough of a glow up to earn a place amongst the theatre A-list? If you’ve seen the movie, I don’t need to summarise the plot — little has changed. If you haven’t seen the movie (in which case, fix that immediately), here’s the gist. In the bustling metropolis of New York we ...

Make Good: The Post Office Scandal – Omnibus Theatre

13Nov

By Olivia CoxNo Comments

London

Make Good: The Post Office Scandal – Omnibus Theatre

By now, the whole of the UK is aware of the tragic miscarriage of justice that was the Post Office scandal, where more than 900 sub postmasters were wrongly convicted of theft, fraud, and false accounting, ruining their reputations and livelihoods in the process. This unbelievable story became more widely known after ITV broadcast the TV drama Mr Bates vs The Post Office. Now, we have a musical take on the scandal in the form of Pentabus and New Perspectives’ Make Good: The Post Office Scandal, written and composed by Jeanie O’Hare and Jim Fortune. There’s a real community feel to the style of storytelling, which fits the source material nicely. We’re introduced to the show by Ed Gaughan, acting as a narrator and host in an engaging fourth wall-breaking monologue before seamlessl...

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button – Ambassadors Theatre

9Nov

By Olivia CoxNo Comments

London

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button – Ambassadors Theatre

The West End has become a shining treasure trove of new musical theatre gems as of late, and a glistening diamond of a show has just been added into the mix: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. After two stints at the Southwark Playhouse in 2019 and 2023, Darren Clark and Jethro Compton’s musical has made its long-awaited West End debut at the Ambassadors Theatre. Adapted from F. Scott Fitzgerald’s 1922 short story of the same name, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button sets the extraordinary tale of the man who ages in reverse within a small fishing village in Cornwall. From the rebranding of the Ambassadors Theatre bar as ‘The Pickled Crab’ (the pub featured within the show) to the gentle call of seagulls heard before the performance starts, this production feels deeply and authentical...

6Nov

By Olivia CoxNo Comments

London

Tones: A Hip-Hop Opera – Brixton House

To pull off a solo show, a performer needs to possess a deeply commanding presence, superhuman confidence, and a sense of great comfort within the space that puts the audience immediately at ease. To pull off a solo show that is almost entirely rapped? That requires something truly special — and that’s exactly what Gerel Falconer, writer and performer of Tones - A Hip-Hop Opera has in abundance. In this show, Falconer plays the role of Jerome (AKA The Professor), a young Black British man navigating our society where race, class, and culture still play a huge role in our sense of belonging. Feeling not Black enough for the area he grew up in yet too Black for the rest of the world, Jerome is forced to confront the impact that assimilation has had on his identity. With his sole compan...

Pop Off, Michelangelo! – The Other Palace

5Nov

By Olivia CoxNo Comments

London

Pop Off, Michelangelo! – The Other Palace

If you asked me to describe my dream show, I’d probably tell you it would be a musical, with stupidly clever comedy, and plenty of niche pop culture references. Luckily for me, The Other Palace is serving up a shining example of this with Dylan MarcAurele’s Pop Off, Michelangelo!, directed by Joe McNeice. An unashamedly untrue retelling of how Renaissance artists Michelangelo (Max Eade) and Leonardo Da Vinci (Aidan MacColl) became frenemies, this show introduces us to the pair as young pals who soon realise they have something in common: they’re both gay, but can’t live as their truest selves out of fear of punishment by the church. Figuring out their simplest route to divine forgiveness is to win over someone who has a direct line to the big man himself, the friends head to art scho...

11Oct

By Olivia CoxNo Comments

London

Brace Brace – Royal Court

“A plane fell out of the sky, and we happened to be on it.” That’s the fourteen-word, remarkably oversimplified synopsis of Oli Forsyth’s new play Brace Brace, brought to life in a startlingly intimate traverse staging at the Royal Court, directed by Daniel Raggett. Having introduced themselves and their whirlwind love story to the audience, newlyweds Sylvia (Anjana Vasan) and Ray (Phil Dunster) explain how their honeymoon began with life-shattering tragedy: the plane they were flying on was taken over by a hijacker (Craige Els, who also portrays a young passenger’s father and the pilot). If the unthinkable horror of believing you’re about to crash to your death from thousands of feet in the air wasn’t enough to fracture the couple, it’s the unique part they each play in the near ...

3Oct

By Olivia CoxNo Comments

London

My Period the C*ckblock – Brixton House

Today is going to be a fantastic day, according to Bolade (Ruth Oyediran). Why? She’s discovered a pill that can delay her period, which means she’s pain-free to hit the biggest day party of the year — featuring her dream man Tion Wayne — with her best friend Jessica (Lara Grace Ilori). This is where we meet the two pals at the beginning of My Period the C*ckblock, written by Oyediran and directed by TD Moyo in this production at Brixton House. What transpires over the next hour is a remarkably well-written exploration of Black British sisterhood, female pain, and the taboos around menstruation. Oyediran’s vibrant and incisive dialogue depicts a charming and authentic portrayal of friendship — and all the entanglements it can bring. Bola and Jess are shown to have grown apart in the ...

26Sep

By Olivia CoxNo Comments

London

The Real Ones – Bush Theatre

Romantic love is a road well travelled by storytellers, but what about its platonic counterpart? Olivier Award-winning playwright Waleed Akhtar seeks to shine a light on the similarly turbulent and complex dynamics within friendship in his new play The Real Ones, currently playing at Bush Theatre until 26th October. Set across a period of almost two decades, we encounter British-Pakistani best friends Zaid (Nathaniel Curtis) and Neelam (Mariam Haque) at various critical moments in their lives — and in their friendship — as they deal with growing up, family tensions, relationships, and identity. Closeted Zaid has his heart fervently set on becoming a playwright, and he’s also navigating his place in the world as a gay Pakistaniakistani man. Having developed a complex relationship with...