Phoenix Arts Club Archives - North West End UK

5Oct

By Alan Stuart MalinNo Comments

London

Soho Electric – Phoenix Arts Club

There are few venues better suited to a night of unapologetically bold cabaret than the Phoenix Arts Club, and ‘Soho Electric’ feels completely at home within its intimate surroundings. Bringing together drag, burlesque, live music and variety performance, this is a gloriously eclectic celebration of cabaret with a distinctly rock-and-roll heartbeat. At the centre of the evening is Vanity Von Glow, who proves to be the perfect host. She is charismatic, quick-witted and effortlessly comfortable working the room to establish an immediate, somewhat naughty connection with the audience, and manages to maintain it throughout. With a voice seemingly built for a rock ballad, Vanity brings genuine power to the musical numbers, combining the theatricality of cabaret with the energy of a rock...

I Screamed a Scream – Phoenix Arts Club

Halloween season is the perfect time to celebrate all things wicked, and I Screamed a Scream embraces that spirit with devilish delight. This cabaret brings together a collection of songs from some of theatre and film’s most iconic villains, alongside a few surprising choices that make you question what really defines a villain in the first place. One of the most unexpected moments of the evening came with the inclusion of Bop to the Top from High School Musical. It’s a fun, upbeat number, but it does make you pause to wonder: are Ryan and Sharpay truly villainous enough to earn their place among such notorious company? Whether or not you think they fit the bill, the song’s addition brought a burst of nostalgia and humour to the night, and that playful unpredictability was part of t...

Caged Sisters Musical – Phoenix Arts Club

Inspired by the Chinese epic Dream of the Red Chamber, this new musical—with book and direction by Sheldon Long—is a diminutive adaptation with much to recommend it but little to actually say. This iteration of the script, which is still under development, runs under an hour and feels more like a presentation of vignettes for audiences already familiar with the source material than a fully realized adaptation in its own right. Mounted by East Meets West Theatre in the iconic Phoenix Arts Club; this production was unfortunately riddled with technical difficulties that interrupted its flow and obfuscated its already difficult-to-follow plot. It tells the story of sisters You Er (Yiting Jian) and You San (Yiqian Shao), although this fact is not revealed until almost halfway through its...