With some subtle Hitchcock references and more than a hint of Sam Shephard about it, Rocky Road, like its confectionery counterpart, is a sweet moreish treat with some hidden surprises.
‘Shifts into a place of great strength & power’: PHEROMONE – LipZinc (Online review)
A pheromone is a chemical reaction affecting behaviour, which appears in LipZinc’s Pheromone in the person of a woman who causes a revolution at number 19, the home of David and Eva.
Can honest critics have theatre professionals as friends?
I’m unashamedly a friend and champion of the theatre; but I can never been a simple cheerleader for it, regardless of the circumstances or my connections with people in a show I’m seeing. As honest critics find out all too often, we’re loved when we love something we see; but that can quickly pivot to becoming the enemy when we don’t.
‘Perfect fit for an audio production’: FOLK – BBC Lights Up Festival (Online review)
Folk by Nell Leyshon tells the true story of Cecil Sharp, the musicologist and collector of English folk music at the turn of the 20th century who was responsible for kick starting the revival of interest in traditional songs.
‘Filled with a rich depth musically’: U.Me The Musical – BBC World Service (Online review) ★★★★
Brand new musical U.Me The Musical, based around a love story unfolding during the pandemic, is charming and heartfelt.
‘Formulated with warmth & deep heartfelt compassion’: FROM ME TO US – Battersea Arts Centre (Online review) ★★★★
From Me To Us by Wayne Steven Jackson is part of the Battersea Arts Centre’s season Wild Times which is available to stream between 10-16 May 2021.
‘Part dream, part hallucination, part creativity’: Unquiet Slumbers: The Haunting of Emily Brontë – Different Theatre (Online review)
Currently available to rent on Sweetstream, Different Theatre’s Unquiet Slumbers: The Haunting of Emily Brontë returns to the topic of women of literature in this meeting of minds between the author and her creation from Wuthering Heights, Catherine Earnshaw Linton.
‘Teeters on the edge of theatre as we used to know it’: Flavour Text / There’s Something Among Us – Chronic Insanity (Online review)
Two intricately constructed online pieces from Chronic Insanity push at the current boundary definitions of theatre.
‘The moral dilemma is tricky’: MONEY – Southwark Playhouse (Online review)
This digital production of The Money (written by Isla van Tricht and directed by Guy Woolf), is really well done. It’s slick, with an excellent script and fantastic actors.
Now & forever? What is the legacy of Cats 40 years on?
There’s hardly a more insistent ear worm of a song in all of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s ear-wormy repertoire than ‘Memory’, the breakout hit of his 1981 musical Cats, which last night celebrated the 40th anniversary of its premiere at the then New London Theatre (now itself renamed for Gillian Lynne, the choreographer whose work on the show ignited a revolution in global musical theatre, and accidentally created the West End’s first authentic dance-based musical).
‘Stretches what a theatre piece at home can achieve’: AN ACORN – Impel Theatre / Oldham Coliseum (Online review)
An Acorn by Caridad Svich is a cross-channel co-production between Impel Theatre and the Oldham Coliseum; first performed in 2017 in North America and now reimagined for the digital space.
‘A tense & gripping two-hander’: THE BARN – Turbine Theatre (Online review)
The Barn is a gripping two act piece whose perfect storm of story, tone and character will be a must-see on stage before too long.
‘Straight from the heart’: FROM ME TO US – Battersea Arts Centre (Online review) ★★★★
Wayne Steven Jackson’s one man show From Me To Us is a thoughtful and insightful look at parenting and how laws have been changed to allow for single father surrogacy.
Being in the room where it happens: How quickly are theatre audiences going to return?
As theatre next week starts to finally edge cautiously out of a full lockdown of over five full months, plus only very intermittent appearances in the nine months before that, the question arises will the audiences be there for it?
‘Entertaining viewing’: SUDDENLY / CELLS (Online review)
Sometimes good things DO come in small packages – a pair of mini musicals, Suddenly and Cells, make a pleasurable watch.
‘Marking out just how powerful digital theatre can be’: Still Life: Untold Stories of Nottingham Now – Nottingham Playhouse (Online review)
Julie Hesmondhalgh and Frances De La Tour, among others, star in the heartbreakingly excellent Still Life: Untold Stories of Nottingham Now.
‘It’s all appealingly bonkers’: CHATEAU GHOUL – LipService / Oldham Coliseum (Online review)
Very end of Blackpool Pier or Phoenix Nights, and if you appreciate either you’ll love Lip Service’s clever characterisations, sly digs at the supernatural, and the way Château Ghoul is deliberately made to look ghastly in its construction.
‘A richly crafted work in its own right’: NORTH WEST – Camden People’s Theatre (Online review)
North West, created by Anna Morrissey and Tristan Kajanus, is available in two versions; one online and one a self-guided audio tour with which you can wander the former North Westminster School, now the posh flats and commercial units of the Paddington Basin.
FROM DOWN UNDER – The Wedding Singer in Melbourne
Shoulder pads, big hair and vivid colours come back to the future in the vibrant Australian premiere season of The Wedding Singer.
‘It shows the glorious tonic of art’: PRELUDES – Southwark Playhouse (Online review) ★★★★★
The three-time Tony Award nominee Dave Malloy’s musical Preludes follows the life of Sergei Rachmaninoff (the role is split into two with musical theatre star Keith Ramsay taking on the role of Rach, and the incredible concert pianist Tom Noyes as Rachmaninoff).