This is a smart and thoughtful interpretation of South Pacific that takes carefully considered approach to some of the problems in the scenario without fully absolving the characters for their behaviour and choices. Managing to balance the sparkle of the big set-pieces and the not so charming effects of military occupation with some serious emotional clout that will leave you wrung through at the end, this sets the standard against which future productions will be judged. With a UK tour running until November, Bali Ha’i is calling you, don’t resist.
NEWS: Chichester’s South Pacific transfers to Manchester & London ahead of UK tour
This summer’s Chichester Festival Theatre smash hit production of Rodgers & Hammerstein’s South Pacific will transfer to London’s Sadler’s Wells in the new year.
NEWS: Chichester’s 60th-anniversary festival includes new plays by Kate Mosse, Alecky Blythe & Stephen Beresford
Chichester Theatre has announced details for the first productions of its 60th-anniversary festival season. The full 2022 Festival season will be unveiled in February.
‘In itself a celebration’: SOUTH PACIFIC – Chichester Festival Theatre ★★★★★
Almost the most magnificent part of Daniel Evans’ production of South Pacific is that it’s happening at all: despite the distanced glimmer of blue paper masks, Chichester affirms that big musical theatre is back with almost insane defiance:
‘Utterly joyous & joyful’: SOUTH PACIFIC – Chichester Festival Theatre
While it is sadly premature to say that the theatre is fully back from its enforced hibernation of the last 15 months that put paid entirely to last summer’s Chichester Festival Theatre season, it was a (socially distanced) delight to welcome back of my favourite regional theatres with the opening, at last, of its production of South Pacific originally planned for last year.
Returning & new productions heading for the West End & beyond post-lockdown: Are you up to date?
Meanwhile, I want to start keeping track of the shows that are coming back, or are newly being announced, in a new feature here that will be updated weekly until such time as it becomes a reality, and from then on will provide a weekly update to that week’s openings and future ones.
‘Full of energy, personality & songs’: THE ELF WHO WAS SCARED OF CHRISTMAS – Stream.Theatre (Online review) ★★★★
Cosy and playful family show The Elf Who Was Scared Of Christmas is exactly the type of show that children need after the strangeness of this year.
NEWS: Sherlock creators Steven Moffat & Mark Gatiss collaborate in Chichester Festival Season packed with world premieres
World premieres in Chichester Festival Theatre’s Festival 2020 include first plays by Steven Moffat and Kate Mosse and new work by Suhayla El-Bushra and Christopher Shinn.
‘The ideal tonic for our modern world’: MATILDA THE MUSICAL – West End ★★★★★
It’s no wonder Matilda The Musical has managed to stand its ground in the West End; it’s a sheer delight for adults and children alike, brimming with optimism and a clear sense of right and wrong.
NEWS: Hayden Tee will play Miss Trunchbull in West End’s Matilda The Musical as new cast announced
The Royal Shakespeare Company’s Matilda The Musical has announced new casting with Hayden Tee playing Miss Trunchbull alongside Rob Compton and Holly Dale Spencer as Mr and Mrs Wormwood.
NEWS: David Shannon & Gina Beck lead new Matilda the Musical cast
The Royal Shakespeare Company’s Matilda The Musical has announced its new adult cast with David Shannon playing Miss Trunchbull alongside Gina Beck as Miss Honey and Tom Edden and Marianne Benedict as Mr and Mrs Wormwood.
INTERVIEW: Jimmy Roberts on I Love You…, Joe DiPietro & new projects
Ahead of August’s I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change reunion, we catch up with the musical’s composer, Jimmy Roberts, about the musical comedy’s enduring appeal, his long-running collaboration with Joe DiPietro and his upcoming projects including a new musical about Rex Harrison and Noel Coward.
NEWS: All-star cast reunites for I Love You, You’re Perfect for two shows only, 15 Aug
Hartshorn-Hook Productions is thrilled to announce the reunion of last year’s critically-acclaimed cast – Simon Lipkin, Gina Beck, Julie Atherton and Samuel Holmes – in I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change. The production, nominated for Best Revival in last year’s Broadway World Awards, will return for two performances at the West End’s Arts Theatre on Monday 15 August 2016.
Mourning Show Boat: Why do great shows close early?
When the news came in late yesterday that, just a fortnight after opening, Show Boat had posted West End closing notices, I was both shocked and not the least bit surprised.
Mourning Show Boat: Why do great shows close early?
When the news came in late yesterday that, just a fortnight after opening, Show Boat had posted West End closing notices, I was both shocked and not the least bit surprised.
NEWS: Show Boat posts early closing notices after five-star reviews, 27 Aug
The limited season of Daniel Evans’ five-star Sheffield Crucible production of Show Boat will now play its final West End performance on 27 August 2016. Show Boat began West End previews at the New London Theatre on 9 April 2016, with opening night on 25 April 2016 after which Evans’ production was the recipient of a second set of five-star reviews. It had initially been booking until 7 January 2017.
SHOW BOAT – West End
From the beginning, what makes this musical so perfect is the way in which it manages to balance between the seriousness and heart-wrenching moments such as when Julie and Steve are forced to leave the show boat due to some ‘questionable’ parentage with some genuinely uplifting and entertaining moments – usually involving Queenie and Joe.
SHOW BOAT – West End
In 1927, Jerome Kern shifted the shape of musical theatre from twee operetta to a tighter fusion of music with drama. He also designed Show Boat as a slap in the face to complacent audiences with its startling opening line ‘Niggers all work on the Mississippi’. In the Daniel Evans’ production which has arrived with bells and whistles and five-star accolades from Sheffield we have a version which is both polished and sanitized.
SHOW BOAT – West End
Show Boat at Sheffield’s Crucible Theatre was the best musical that I saw last year and its London transfer is setting a very high bar for 2016. Daniel Evans’ production, mounted on Lez Brotherston’s spectacularly evocative set doesn’t just reprise one of Broadway’s greatest ever musicals, it recreates America’s Southlands and Midwest at the turn of the 20th century, with a spine-tingling intensity.
REVIEW ROUND-UP: Show Boat at the New London Theatre
Transferring down south after its successful run in Sheffield and directed by Daniel Evans – can the show stay afloat or does it sink? Show Boat is booking at the West End’s New London Theatre until 7 January 2016.
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