London Archives - Page 8 of 170

29May

By Charles PipeNo Comments

London

Black Comedy– Orange Tree Theatre

Aspiring sculptor, social climber, and cad Brindsley Miller is supposed to be hosting both his fiancé’s well-to-do father as well as a famed art collector in his unimpressive flat, when a blown fuse plunges the entire building into darkness. What follows is a hilarious cavalcade of slapstick gags and farcical set pieces, as Miller attempts to spin more and more plates and stay on top of an ever-growing web of lies in order to keep his many transgressions from coming to light. Unlike Miller’s evening, this revival of Peter Shaffer’s farce is an absolute success. While the characters are in darkness, the audience gets a clear view of everything, thanks to Elliot Griggs’s simple-yet-effective lighting design (and a lighting desk operator with split-second-perfect timing). While the charact...

Beetlejuice The Musical – Prince Edward Theatre

29May

By Maani WayNo Comments

London

Beetlejuice The Musical – Prince Edward Theatre

Based on Tim Burton’s iconic film of 1988, Beetlejuice bursts onto the West End in musical form with an all-star cast and presents a unique and thrilling piece of theatre. This eagerly awaited stage adaptation has been highly anticipated since its US debut in 2018 and does not disappoint. This is the story of Beetlejuice, the title character: a pale-faced ghoul dressed head to toe in a black-and-white suit, complete with outrageous green hair, trapped between the real world and the afterlife, affectionately known as “The Netherworld”. Beetlejuice has one goal: to be seen and no longer feel invisible. His plan to achieve that involves killing a seemingly ordinary couple and haunting the new occupants of their home. However, it is not until he meets Lydia, the daughter now living in the h...

The Rapping Princess – Polka Theatre Wimbledon

27May

By Michelle KnightNo Comments

London

The Rapping Princess – Polka Theatre Wimbledon

This beautifully crafted adaptation of the book The Rapping Princess by Hannah Lees and Allen Fatimaharans’ tells the story of “Shiloh, a princess with a big love for music. But she’s got one problem, she cannot sing”. Through her dismay and her parents’ disappointment Shiloh embarks on a journey of discovery to only find that she has another hidden talent that not even she expected. With a cast of two performers, they take you on a journey of song through the genres, beat box and rap. Anu Akinseye (once on this Island, Into the woods) plays Shiloh she is joined by Grace Venus (Stalled, Sleeping Beauty) as the Queendom Storyteller, who also voices the King, the Queen, Doctor Grump, DJ Princess Kenya, and various princes. This play incorporates purposeful interaction to encourage the...

23May

By Stewart Who?No Comments

London

The Harder They Come – Stratford East

Here’s the truth. I reviewed The Harder They Come at Stratford East when it opened last autumn. It got an enthusiastic five stars. It deserved every one of them. Spoiler alert- it’s getting five stars again. The fact that I jumped at the chance to repeat the experience is another testament to this show’s joyful power. Jimmy Cliff died at the age of 81, last November, adding a certain poignancy to this welcome comeback. This musical is based on Perry Henzell’s seminal 1972 film The Harder They Come. While casting the movie, Henzell asked Jimmy Cliff, ‘Do you think you could write some music for the movie?’ ‘What do you mean, do I think?’ replied Cliff. ‘I can do anything.’ Cliff’s swaggering confidence not only won him the lead role of Ivan, but he also wrote much of the legendary sou...

Churchill’s Urinal – King’s Head Theatre

23May

By Saloni SanwalkaNo Comments

London

Churchill’s Urinal – King’s Head Theatre

Imagine a zombie Winston Churchill, slobbering and drunk, delivering one of his trademark rousing speeches to you through a hole in a half-destroyed urinal. You’d have a fairly good idea of what it is like to be an audience member in Rosie Holt’s Churchill’s Urinal. The show is 70 minutes of non-stop chaos as the protagonist, played by Holt and heavily inspired by first female Chancellor Rachel Reeves, simultaneously deals with an overbearing boss, incompetent assistant, and indifferent soon-to-be-ex-husband, all while a mob gathers outside her office, calling for her head. The cause? Her wish to remove a urinal from the Chancellor’s private bathroom which was once used by Sir Winston Churchill and is thus classed a national treasure. This sets the stage for a sharply scripted satire...

21May

By Zain RussellNo Comments

London

End of the Rainbow – Soho Theatre

Jinkx Monsoon takes on the role of Judy Garland in End of the Rainbow, delivering a performance that is both captivating and emotionally devastating. Best known by many for their drag artistry and sharp wit, Monsoon proves themself to be an exceptional dramatic performer, embodying Garland with remarkable precision. From the mannerisms and vocal delivery to the emotional vulnerability beneath every scene, the portrayal feels deeply authentic and heartbreakingly human. The production itself is brilliantly written, refusing to romanticise Garland’s final years. Instead, it presents an unflinching look at a beloved icon struggling with addiction, exhaustion, and the crushing pressures of fame. At times, the show is genuinely difficult to watch, not because it lacks quality, but because it ...

18May

By Charlotte MansfieldNo Comments

London

Stage Kiss – Hampstead Theatre

Currently in its UK debut at Hampstead Theatre, Stage Kiss explores the nature of acting and the intimacy of a kiss, asking where are the lines between reality and performance, and what would the fallout be if those lines began to blur? In Sarah Bruhl’s critically acclaimed romantic comedy, an actress returning to work after a long break finds her ex has been cast opposite her in a revival of a terrible 1930s play, The Last Kiss, where the plot makes no sense and half the characters are called Millicent. Life begins to mirror art as the leads fall back in love, just like the characters they portray, causing upheaval in their normal lives. But is the romance sustainable once the play they’re in has ended? As the reality of being poor and out of work sets in, they are cast in a second ter...

18May

By Paul AckroydNo Comments

London

Player – Riverside Studios

Actors like nothing more than talking about themselves and their profession, and this wonderful little play at Riverside Studios, written by Matthew Lyon, is an ode to the joys but mainly pains of trying to make a career in the theatre. It is almost all written in rhyming couplets in a faux Shakespearean style, which makes it a delight to listen to. Lyon himself plays the actor struggling through the various stages of life in the theatre from initial stirrings of interest at school and home, not always encouraged, through the agony of endless auditions until at last reaching the zenith of actually having a script for the part of “seventh spear carrier on the left”. Ola Forman plays all the other pa...

Mother Courage and Her Children – Shakespeare’s Globe

18May

By Charlotte MansfieldNo Comments

London

Mother Courage and Her Children – Shakespeare’s Globe

Brecht without being Brechtian, Mother Courage at the Globe is an array of sound and colour that departs from the play's theatrical roots. Brecht's classic play about the effect of war was written in response to the rise of Nazi Germany, set centuries earlier, to create distance so that the audience could observe the events without connecting to them. Anna Jordan's translation brings the play into the modern era, referencing drones and missiles, the distance instead achieved by changing the names of countries to colours. We see Blue soldiers fighting Purple ones, with the Orange revolutionaries rebelling against both. In the midst of this is Mother Courage, played by the Globe’s Artistic Director Michelle Terry. She is a war profiteer. Beginning the play with three children and...

15May

By Klervi GavetNo Comments

London

Visite – Coronet Theatre

This is the second time I’ve come across the work of physical theatre company Teatro dei Gordi. The first was Pandora, a production set in a public bathroom so funny, strange and precise that I spent months recommending it to people afterwards. I was looking forward to seeing what they would do next. Visite did not disappoint. Teatro dei Gordi makes theatre that reminds you we speak in many ways. Words are only one of them. There is also movement, rhythm. In Visite, the company turns its attention to time: how it shapes friendships, bodies, habits, and the way joy and grief slowly accumulate inside a life. Inspired by Ovid’s Metamorphoses and the story of Philemon and Baucis, the piece follows a group of friends from young adulthood into old age, tracing decades of shared life with r...