Back for its 2022 tour, We Will Rock You is set in a dystopian future where “real” music has been outlawed and replaced with manufactured pop. Society is lived online and it’s up to a group of Bohemians to travel across the Seven Seas of Rye, declare themselves the champions and bring back rock and roll and freedom for all.
Mark Shenton relishes the glorious architecture of theatres & cinemas & their shared history
Glory palaces of cinema that became theatres — and vice versa — that Mark Shenton longs to visit again.
NEWS: Selladoor postpones five musical tours until 2021 & extends venue closures
Selladoor Worldwide has announced that it will suspend its 2020 touring productions – shifting the majority of shows to start in 2021.
NEWS: We Will Rock You reschedules new UK tour for early 2021
Following the closure of all UK theatres during the coronavirus crisis, the 2020 UK tour of Queen & Ben Elton’s We Will Rock You has been rescheduled for early 2021.
‘Revels in its ridiculousness’: WE WILL ROCK YOU – Touring ★★★★
What can really elevate a show of this nature is the cast, and a remarkably talented set of performers have been assembled for this tour of We Will Rock You.
Missed The Boat: We Will Rock You
What a difference, er, 16 years makes… Despite the show spending over a decade at the Dominion Theatre, I never managed to make it to see We Will Rock You in the height of my original Queen obsession – it actually closed just four months before I moved to London.
My dirty love affair with the jukebox musical
I was the first one to declare how much I hated the idea of using existing pop music for a ‘new’ musical. I was certain that Mamma Mia! would not last long and I’d pick up some deeply discounted ticket a few months in to take a look at just how bad it was…
NEWS: Brian May & Kerry Ellis launch Candlelit Christmas tour
Queen star Brian May and singing sensation Kerry Ellis today announced they are teaming up once more for a new series of UK concerts at the end of the year. May and Ellis will play 11 shows across the country in the lead-up to Christmas. Their Candlelit Christmas Tour kicks off on 7 December 2016.
The past, present and future of theatre criticism
Mark has been taking part in a workshop as part of the Young Critics programme held at Winchester’s Theatre Royal. He gave the following speech to young critics on 4 April 2015.
No one ever built a statue to a critic, it was once famously said, but in 2013 two critics received OBE’s in the Queen’s New Year’s Honours list. Michael Billington and Philip French, theatre and film critics for The Guardian and The Observer,were honoured after writing reviews in their particular disciplines for a 100 years between them. And in New York, there are not one but two Broadway theatres named after critics, Brooks Atkinson (pictured left) and Walter Kerr. We don’t yet have a Ken Tynan or even a Jack Tinker Theatre here, let alone a Billington.
And 2013 marked another centenary: that of the Critics’ Circle itself. So critics have been around for a long time, and are still having a demonstrable influence in setting the cultural agendas of the areas they cover. But will they be around much longer?
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What did I miss? Part Two: Musical chairs
Before we were so rudely interrupted by the weekend and my boyfriend Peter’s demands (schlockily entertaining by the way, even while having to wear 3D glasses), I was recapping “The Month That Theatre Terri Lost”. The point being: a lot has happened, and generally always does happen in Theatreland, amen, let us count our blessings. So […]