We are all familiar with the likes of The Phantom of the Opera, Les Miserables and Miss Saigon, for example – but what about those equally good and deserve to be seen more often? Here are some of Love London Love Culture’s favourites, including one that you can see on the London stage right now…
Year in Review: Jonathan Baz’s top shows of 2016
My favourite moments of the shows that I saw in 2016 are below and include performances from across the UK, together with the USA and also Europe. Theatre, cabaret, dance and concert performances are all included and there’s no ranking.
Year in Review: Ian Foster’s top 10 shows of 2016 (out of 332 seen)
I started the year intending to see fewer shows than in 2015, when I made 304 visits to the theatre – but, somehow, I seem have crept up to 332 for 2016. The only consolation is that it is still some way off the high water mark of 2014… 383.
Year in Review: Emma Clarendon’s 11 favourite shows of 2016
2016 is coming to an end and to celebrate another year, Emma Clarendon names some of her favourite shows of the year, including Aladdin, Dreamgirls and The Libertine.
Half-year round-up: The 2016 shows I’ve loved so far
Here is a list of a few things that Love London Love Culture have enjoyed seeing this year so far… including, still running, Guys & Dolls, The Comedy About a Bank Robbery, In the Heights and Aladdin.
Half-year round-up: The 2016 shows I’ve loved so far
Here is a list of a few things that Love London Love Culture have enjoyed seeing this year so far… including, still running, Guys & Dolls, The Comedy About a Bank Robbery, In the Heights and Aladdin.
Diary of a Theatre Addict: 49 shows in six weeks, getting up to date
I’ve not updated my diary of a theatre addict for six weeks now — I was last here on January 31 — since when I’ve seen all of 49 shows, including outings to Newbury, Dartford, Clwyd, Manchester, Bromley and Cardiff, plus a week in New York. I’ve also taken an active part in two more shows by appearing onstage as a contestant in a theatrical re-run of Mr and Mrs with husband (so it was really Mr and Mr, we’re pictured above with host Samuel Holmes) and as part of David Bedella and Friends, his monthly chat show at the St James Studio.
TICKETS: Mark’s Top Ten recommendations + this week’s openings (1 Feb)
Mark Shenton’s top ten of the week, including Florian Zeller’s The Mother that has followed his play The Father (soon to return to the West End) to London from Bath. Plus, this week’s biggest openings.
Diary of a Theatre Addict: From New York to Edinburgh & Eastbourne, plus meeting Judi Dench
I’ve not been here with my usual weekly diary of a theatre addict for a month now. So today I’m catching up, not on a week, but on an entire month — during which time I’ve been to Edinburgh, Barbados, New York, Eastbourne and of course London. I’ve interviewed Andy Nyman, Sheridan Smith, Joe McElderry, composer Lucy Simon, Janie Dee and Diana Rigg.
Closing Review: THE DAZZLE – Found 111
I’m still not sure what to make of The Dazzle – in the least comfortable fringe theatre newly created in the West End, up 76 steps and with a padlocked lift the first mystery is how Westminster Council licensed it. It starts out as quite a tender portrait of a brother caring for his autistic, introverted concert pianist twin but in Act 2 turns in to Grey Gardens without the jokes, the music or the outré ways to wear a cardigan.
TICKETS: Mark’s Top Ten recommendations + this week’s openings (25 Jan)
Top ten of the week, including Bend it Like Beckham, Close to You and In the Heights, three shows I’ve already re-visited again and again, and intend to yet again!
Weekly Theatre Podcast: The Dazzle, Grey Gardens, Les Liaisons Dangereuses
Every week, a group of regular, dedicated, independent theatre bloggers gather together for intelligent discussion “from the audience’s perspective” about plays and musicals they’ve recently seen in London. Lively, informed and entertaining. My Theatre Mates is delighted to syndicate the (still) As Yet Unnamed London Theatre Podcast (AYULTP). Shows discussed (with timings) in this edition’s podcast: The Dazzle – Found111, …
Composing Grey Gardens: “It’s very difficult to keep the line between the past and the present”
The American writers of Grey Gardens are clearly delighted with the European premiere production of their musical, now being staged at London’s Southwark Playhouse in a limited, six-week (and already sold-out) season. “We feel enormously blessed,” said composer Scott Frankel, at a post-show Q&A, chaired by My Theatre Mates‘ colleague Mark Shenton, in which he was joined by his lyricist Michael Korie and book writer Doug Wright, all of whom had flown over from New York for the opening the night before. “Everybody clearly wants to be in the room.”
Press pass: All the reviews and more from Grey Gardens’ European premiere
Producer Danielle Tarento and director Thom Southerland have created another Off-West End mega-hit musical. In fact, Grey Gardens has broken all box office records at Southwark Playhouse where it has already sold out, eclipsing the pair’s other much-loved Broadway musical reclamations at the same address over the past five years: Grand Hotel (2015 – spot […]
GREY GARDENS – Southwark Playhouse
Sometimes inspiration comes from the most unlikely places. Grey Gardens is a musical based on the critically acclaimed 1975 documentary about former First Lady Jackie Kennedy’s aunt and cousin, Edith Ewing Bouvier Beale and her daughter Edith Bouvier Beale. Despite their wealthy background and connections, the two were revealed in the 1970s to be living in squalor, their house overrun by stray cats (and other wildlife) and deemed ‘unfit for human habitation’ by the Health Department.
GREY GARDENS – Southwark Playhouse
Director and producer Thom Southerland and Danielle Tarento solidify their reputation for salvaging ancient wrecks off the American coast. Having rescued Titanic equally from the icy waters of the North Atlantic and the deadly maw of a Kate Winslet movie to polish it to a high shine, they now dredge up two decrepit floaters from the shore of Long Island in Grey Gardens.
GREY GARDENS – Southwark Playhouse
It’s not hard to see why Grey Gardens – the musical – has become such a collector’s item. This strange but true tale of American royalty gone rogue, of Jacqueline Kennedy’s rebellious relatives, of a stain on the Bouvier clan somehow exposing the rot at the heart of the American dream was/is irresistible. We all fell for the delicious anarchy of Albert Maysles’ splendid documentary but equally picked up on the sadness of what was at heart an extreme case of co-dependancy. But when “Little Edie Beale said “It’s very diffiicult to keep the line between the past and the present” she unlocked what makes Scott Frankel, Michael Korie and Doug Wright’s work really special.
GREY GARDENS – Southwark Playhouse
Hot on the heels of THE DAZZLE (about the New York Collyer brothers living in hoarderly squalid isolation) this is about Edith Bouvier Beale and her daughter Little Edie half a century later, living in even more eccentric squalor in the Hamptons. Both interpret true stories. Even more thematically satisfying for the playgoer, no sooner has Imelda Staunton bowed out as Mama Rose dominating her daughter in Gypsy, than we can contemplate the equally showbiz- thwarted Edith senior sabotaging hers. Delusion, eccentricity, toxic but irresistible family bonds, musical obsession and memory: great themes, played out with satisfying difference on stages either side of the Thames.
GREY GARDENS – Southwark Playhouse
Making its European premiere, Grey Gardens is a blend of fact and fiction that tells of Edith Bouvier Beale, aunt to and her daughter Edie. What sets this family apart is that the two women were respectively aunt and first cousin to the woman who was to become the world’s First Lady, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis.
Mark Shenton: My top ten ticket picks for 2016
Looking ahead to this year’s highlights, from Broadway imports and Pulitzer prize winners to Kenneth Branagh and Matthew Warchus’s ongoing seasons.
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