This year’s National Youth Music Theatre (NYMT) residency at the Other Palace sees this remarkable theatre company tackle Jason Robert Brown’s Parade, a musical that is as technically demanding as its story is grim and harrowing.
SINGIN’ IN THE RAIN – Paris ★★★★★
Fittingly, the reviewing year has ended in the grandest of styles at Paris’ Grand Palais to where the city’s illustrious Theatre du Châtelet have temporarily decamped, reviving their 2015 production of Singin’ In The Rain.
SINGIN’ IN THE RAIN – Paris ★★★★★
Fittingly, the reviewing year has ended in the grandest of styles at Paris’ Grand Palais to where the city’s illustrious Theatre du Châtelet have temporarily decamped, reviving their 2015 production of Singin’ In The Rain.
‘Witty, gothic & enchanting’: Matthew Bourne’s CINDERELLA – Sadler’s Wells & touring ★★★★★
Matthew Bourne’s Second World War staging was first aired in 1997, before a revival in 2010 leading to this 2017 slightly re-worked reprise and it makes for an uncompromising interpretation of the famous yarn.
‘Witty, gothic & enchanting’: Matthew Bourne’s CINDERELLA – Sadler’s Wells & touring ★★★★★
Matthew Bourne’s Second World War staging was first aired in 1997, before a revival in 2010 leading to this 2017 slightly re-worked reprise and it makes for an uncompromising interpretation of the famous yarn.
THE CHRISTMASAURUS LIVE ONSTAGE – Eventim Apollo ★★★★★
“This is not a musical. This is not a concert. This is not a panto, or a play, or anything I can compare it to,” so proclaims Tom Fletcher in the show notes. And he is quite right. While The Christmasaurus Live On Stage has components of all of these, it is – much like the titular only dinosaur in the world – truly unique.
‘Sumptuous’: A CHRISTMAS CAROL – London Musical Theatre Orchestra ★★★★★
Reprising his 2016 creation, Robert Lindsay is a gnarled and grizzled Ebenezer Scrooge, blossoming as he journeys to discover compassion and kindness.
KING LEAR – Chichester ★★★★★
King Lear is the jewel in the crown of Daniel Evans’ opening year as Chichester’s Artistic Director. Ian McKellen is every inch a king in Jonathan Munby’s production that is currently playing a short, sold-out season
SUNSET BOULEVARD – Touring ★★★★★
There is a magic that pervades Nikolai Foster’s production of Sunset Boulevard, and it flows from leading lady Ria Jones. Twenty-six years after creating the role of Norma Desmond for Andrew Lloyd Webber at the composer’s Sydmonton Festival, Jones now leads the show and never has a casting been more perfect.
PIPPIN – Manchester ★★★★★
Pippin closed this weekend at Manchester’s Hope Mill Theatre with, yet again, this Northern powerhouse of fringe theatre delivering a stunning take on a Broadway Tony-winner.
THE REVLON GIRL – Park Theatre ★★★★★
On a 1966 October morning in the small Welsh mining village of Aberfan, an estimated 150,000 tonnes of colliery waste suddenly began to move.
FIVE GUYS NAMED MOE – Marble Arch Theatre ★★★★★
Created thirty years ago by Clarke Peters and swiftly transferring from the Theatre Royal Stratford East across town to the West End and then to Broadway, it is a delight to see the show return to London, where it simply outclasses many of today’s long-running musicals.
FOLLIES – National Theatre ★★★★★
It’s been a while since the National Theatre last revived a great song and dance extravaganza and a Sondheim one at that. But with Dominic Cooke’s production of Follies, the NT’s reputation as one of the nation’s finest creators of musical theatre is restored.
TOP HAT – Kilworth
Stephen Mear’s take on Top Hat, just opened at Leicestershire’s Kilworth House Theatre is further proof that for this summer at least, the very best musical theatre openings are all taking place outside of London.
IMAGINARY – The Other Palace
Imaginary follows the friendship of two young boys, Milo (Tom Price) and Sam (Josh Gottlieb). As Sam’s only friend the pair do everything together, playing all day and letting their imaginations run wild.
A LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC – Newbury
The enchanted narrative of A Little Night Music sees the summer night famously smiling three times: once upon the young, again upon the foolish and finally, upon the old.
TOMMY – Touring
Ramps On The Moon’s production of Tommy, directed by Kerry Michael, is a truly wonderful production. As the rock opera created by The Who is famously about a “deaf, dumb and blind kid”, so does this work build upon a cast, at least half of whom triumph in their performance over a range of disabilities.
TOMMY – Touring
Ramps On The Moon’s production of Tommy, directed by Kerry Michael, is a truly wonderful production. As the rock opera created by The Who is famously about a “deaf, dumb and blind kid”, so does this work build upon a cast, at least half of whom triumph in their performance over a range of disabilities.
WORKING – Southwark Playhouse
It is remarkable how the mundane, simple and modest elements of hard graft, so often taken for granted, become the catalyst for the way you think and live your life, despite your best efforts to be defined by your dreams. Working, a musical directed by Luke Sheppard at the Southwark Playhouse, capitalises on that universal revelation with an incredible cast performing heartfelt, heartwarming and heart-wrenching stories of real people.
IL MATRIMONIO SEGRETO – Geffreye Museum
The idea that opera can pop-up is delightful and Pop-Up Opera’s simple approach to the genre, even more so. It’s no wonder Cimarosa’s Il Matrimonio Segreto, or The Secret Marriage, is his greatest masterpiece and it’s also no wonder that the cast and crew seemed so full of pride at their humble creation; it really was quite gorgeous and a giggle to behold.