From great American novel to star-casted film to Tony Award-nominated Broadway musical, Alison Walker’s The Color Purple has seen many formats over the years. A hard-hitting musical at the best of times, and a musical that needs passion, love and a cast to carry the story above and beyond. Like many in the audience, my only experience of this gut-wrenching story has either been with the book taught and analysed in schools or the 2015 new Broadway cast recording starring Cynthia Erivo and Jenifer Hudson – this new staging of the infamous musical is just as breathtaking as every adaptation I have come into contact with.
News, Reviews and Features
These are all of our in-house news and features as well as syndicated article excerpts from our 45+ theatre bloggers. You can also access All Our Mates' Posts in comprehensive list form and view individual author pages.
‘Quite haunting’: LANDSCAPE WITH WEAPON – Cockpit Theatre
Landscape with Weapon asks some interesting and uncomfortable questions, and ultimately proves that when it comes to morality, right and wrong are not always as clear-cut as we might like them to be.
‘An unforgettable evening’: ROSE – Park Theatre ★★★★★
Martin Sherman’s 1999 masterpiece Rose is an immense monologue – two halves, each over an hour – and Maureen Lipman tackles it with pin-sharp timing, humour, and controlled feeling, sitting on her bench remembering. Her extraordinary performance was streamed during the Covid years but to see it live in front of you in this intimate theatre is different, startling and personal, heroic. With the best will in the world any screen showing fades into being just more TV, more Holocaust history. This does not.
REVIEW ROUND-UP: Handbagged at the Kiln Theatre
Love London Love Culture’s Emma Clarendon discovers what critics have had to say about the revival of Moira Buffini’s political comedy Handbagged now playing at the Kiln Theatre.
‘A thing of importance & carefully pointed simmering rage’: THE P WORD – Bush Theatre ★★★★★
Here’s something you don’t get to experience too often: a gritty piece of contemporary writing that gives theatrical voice to people largely unrepresented on stage, and does so with compassion and comedy; a new play that is at once delicately intimate yet epic in scope, and a cracking piece of storytelling that manages to indict it’s audience without ever feeling preachy or worthy. Waleed Akhtar’s The P Word is a plea for tolerance, a study of the power of friendship, a sort-of love story and ultimately a potent political act that grips like a thriller.
‘Some of the twists are gasp-inducing’: THE CLINIC – Almeida Theatre ★★★
Tea drinking features heavily in Dipo Baruwa-Etti’s posh kitchen-set play The Clinic at the Almeida Theatre. But this tea may or may not have intoxicating or calming effects; even those who fervently dislike infusions get a taste for it. And that is The Clinic, a mix of contemporary family drama and something more difficult to put a finger on.
VIDEO & PHOTOS: A memorable night of both sadness & celebration with the cast & creatives of Proforca’s Flashbang
The death of Queen Elizabeth II was announced just before my arrival at the Lion & Unicorn Theatre. Like the rest of the country, the theatre staff had been braced for the sad news. So the world premiere of Proforca’s Flashbang was preceded by a public address and collective silence.
‘Rarely less than entertaining but too restrained’: THE SNAIL HOUSE – Hampstead Theatre ★★★
Shiny though the shell is, Richard Eyre’s play The Snail House at Hampstead Theatre becomes a frustrating stew of ideas, attitudes and family tensions which doesn’t quite hit the finishing line. Directed by the author himself it is rarely less than entertaining, always emotionally recognisable and interestingly topical: but it’s too humble, too restrained.
‘Certainly makes a statement’: WHO KILLED MY FATHER – Young Vic Theatre
It is always exciting seeing van Hove’s work for the Internationaal Theater Amsterdam with its cinematic vision encapsulated in theatrical form. Here in Who Killed My Father at the Young Vic Theatre there is both intimacy and scale that neatly capture the contradictions and complexities of loving a family member. The title of this work may not be a question but it certainly makes a statement.
‘Thought-provoking production delivered by a strong cast’: LANDSCAPE WITH WEAPON – Cockpit Theatre ★★★★
Landscape with Weapon at the Cockpit Theatre focuses on Ned (Danny Szam) whose deadly vision is to create a flock of drones capable of taking out enemies that are hiding in buildings or underground with horrifying precision. Therefore eliminating the need for mass killing and destruction of civilians often caught up in the firing line.
NEWS: The unglamorous side of showbusiness is revealed in Marie Lloyd Stole My Life – now on a regional tour
In the centenary year of Marie Lloyd’s death, J.J. Leppink’s Marie Lloyd Stole My Life, beginning a regional tour on 18 September at Colchester’s Headgate Theatre, tells the story of how the ‘Queen of the Music Hall’ came to fame at another’s expense.
‘Read this as an absurdist fantasy & it makes more sense’: HELP! WE ARE STILL ALIVE – Seven Dials Playhouse ★★★
Finn (Elijah Ferreira) and Jass (Jade Johnson), who identify as queer, are the last two people left alive by circumstance after a suffocating fog in the charming one-act musical Help! We Are Still Alive at the Seven Dials Playhouse.
‘Highly entertaining evening’: TRUMP L’OEIL – Upstairs at the Gatehouse
Trump L’Oeil is a musical romp through the Trump years, played for laughs and employing many different theatrical genres to create the full effect of the chaos of the time. Drawing on surrealist influences, this is part cabaret, part circus and part queer theatre, with an equally broad range of music, from rap to pop and including a neatly adapted, storming version of ‘Puttin’ (Putin) On the Ritz’ – there’s even a hefty nod to Dr Seuss in ‘Marvellous Me’, the show’s opening number.
FEATURED SHOW: ★★★★★ Flashbang is ‘full of the usual Proforca magic’. Reviews are in!
Flashbang, Proforca Theatre’s latest new play at London’s Lion & Unicorn Theatre, has attracted a slew of five- and four-star reviews for its premiere production, which must end this Saturday 17 September 2022. We’ve rounded up review highlights.
‘Gabriel Byrne is a magnetic presence’: WALKING WITH GHOSTS – Apollo Theatre ★★★★★
Following in the footsteps of the likes of David Suchet and Ian McKellen, celebrated Irish actor Gabriel Byrne brings his memoir, Walking With Ghosts, to the stage. This brief West End run comes off the back of an engagement at Dublin’s Gaiety Theatre earlier this year, and a stint on Broadway will follow next month.
‘Lean, taut production’: DOCTOR FAUSTUS – Southwark Playhouse
Lazarus Theatre Company’s latest production of Doctor Faustus (which is directed by Ricky Dukes), takes place with modern dress, but retains Christopher Marlowe’s original words (albeit in a truncated version).
NEWS: Anita Luna follows The Diva with Full of Shit premiere at Clapham Fringe
After the success with Anita Luna THE DIVA at Clapham Fringe last year, award-winning Italian cabaret artist Anita Giovanni is back at the festival this year, debuting her new show Full of Shit, which runs for one performance only on 26 September 2022. It’s a love affair: in London, Anita found her artistic heart. Time to get booking!
’An excellent adaptation’: DEMON DENTIST – Touring ★★★★★
This is the premiere of David Walliams’ Demon Dentist, presented by Birmingham Stage Company, one of the leading producers of quality theatre for children and families.
‘A moving experience’: SILENCE – Donmar Warehouse
In Silence at the Donmar Warehouse four British playwrights have adapted Kavita Puri’s book Partition Voices: Untold British Stories in a joint production between Donmar Warehouse and Tara Theatre.
‘Subtle but powerful’: WHO KILLED MY FATHER – Young Vic Theatre ★★★★
I can now say I’ve seen Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio on stage. OK, so they were on telly on stage, but that is technically on stage. Kate and Leo were in Titanic mode, the favourite film of the son in Who Killed My Father. His homophobic father initially refuses to get him the video for his birthday.