The playwright Lynn Nottage – double Pulitzer winner – has plunged here into a full musical version of Sue Monk Kidd’s rather odd novel The Secret Life of Bees at the Almeida Theatre. The lyrics (excellent ones) are by Susan Birkenhead and the music by Duncan Sheik. It’s bluesy, a bit gospelly, sometimes rock, all wonderfully sung. As the characters develop the songs offer every nuance from romantic gentleness to the immense defiant ‘Hold this House Together!’ anthem near the end.
‘A hopeful & meaningful night’: THE SECRET LIFE OF BEES – Almeida Theatre
The source material for The Secret Life of Bees may have a perhaps overly simplistic plot and limited character development but Lynn Nottage, Duncan Sheikh and Susan Birkenhead have done much to bring this story to life through the much more grounded civil rights frame and ongoing challenges faced by working communities, while the music brings a real soulful and impassioned perspective that builds audience engagement.
‘Powerfully moving’: CAROLINE, OR CHANGE – West End
The extraordinary Caroline or Change makes the leap into the West End at the Playhouse Theatre, with a titanic Sharon D Clarke at the helm.
‘A five-star cast deliver distinctly flawed material’: CAROLINE, OR CHANGE – West End ★★★
Caroline, or Change is a curious show that sees a five-star cast deliver distinctly flawed material. Set in an early 1960s Louisiana.
‘It never quite unites as tidily & explosively as it promises to do’: CAROLINE, OR CHANGE – West End
Caroline or Change has a lot going for it and three potentially interesting plot lines that should fully engage, yet it never quite unites as tidily and explosively as it promises to do, the wackier aspects serving to alienate rather than enhance the rest of the story.
NEWS: Full casting is announced for West End transfer of Caroline, Or Change
Full casting has been announced for Caroline, Or Change, the musical written by Tony Kushner, with a score from Tony Award-winning Jeanine Tesori, which will run at the West End’s Playhouse Theatre from 20 November 2018 to 9 February 2019.
‘Words can barely do justice to the way Sharon D Clarke inhabits her role’: CAROLINE, OR CHANGE – Hampstead Theatre
Tony Kushner and Jeanine Tesori’s complex and challenging civil rights musical Caroline, or Change makes its long-awaited London return to the Hampstead Theatre.
‘Musicals rarely get to be this important’: CAROLINE, OR CHANGE – Hampstead Theatre ★★★★★
There are places deep inside us that only song can reach; when – in Caroline, Or Change – Sharon D Clarke’s sometimes mellifluous, sometimes scorching, tones reach that place, they shake your soul and awaken your spirit.
NEWS: Full cast announced for London run of Caroline, Or Change, starring Sharon D Clarke
Hampstead Theatre has announced the full company for Tony Kushner’s and Jeanine Tesori’s musical Caroline, or Change, following its critically acclaimed run at Chichester Festival Theatre last summer.
‘A bold re-envisioning’: GUYS & DOLLS – Manchester
Michael Buffong’s reinterpretation of Guys and Dolls, a co-production between the Royal Exchange and Talawa Theatre, is just that, a bold re-envisioning of the classic musical that consequently comes up with something different.
GUYS & DOLLS – Manchester ★★★★★
This Guys and Dolls is the perfect feel-good Christmas production. Playing out in-the-round on the Royal Exchange’s iconic stage, you’ll be left with a spring in your step and a smile on your face long after leaving the theatre. This is a performance that should not be missed.
NEWS: Ray Fearon & Ashley Zhangazha lead UK’s first all-black Guys & Dolls
This Christmas director Michael Buffong transports GUYS AND DOLLS uptown to 1939 Harlem in the UK’s first all-black cast production of this iconic 1950 Broadway musical classic, which has been reimagined and developed with the award-winning hip-hop dancer and choreographer Kenrick ‘H20’ Sandy.
Queer Theatre at the National: Wig Out
McCraney is now an Oscar-winning writer after the phenomenal success of Moonlight (based on one of his unproduced plays) and RuPaul has dragged drag into the mainstream
WIG OUT – National Theatre
The play centres around the house ball culture mostly based in the US, and takes place over the course of 24 hours. We follow the journey of the House of Light *snaps* as they get ready for a ball thrown by their rivals, House of Diabolique.
NEWS: Jude Law is patron of Lewisham free ticket scheme, and other news
A Theatre Trip for Every Child, Lewisham is a new giving scheme to provide a free theatre ticket for every 5-year-old in the Borough of Lewisham. ‘Every Child’ enables businesses and individuals to give a local child the chance to experience the magic of theatre.
CAROLINE OR CHANGE – Chichester
Well Daniel Evans looks set to be continuing one of Chichester Festival Theatre’s longstanding traditions, of producing musical theatre that tempts the cognoscenti over to West Sussex in droves and which leads calls for West End transfers as soon as the curtain falls (if they had curtains in Chichester that is…).