Paines Plough presents ‘You Stupid Darkness’ at Southwark Playhouse. Whether you live in London or not, if you have an interested in contemporary theatre you are likely to have bumped into Paines Plough at some point in the last 45 years or so. A touring company focussing on new productions, they’ve now produced more than […]
Onegin – Royal Ballet at the Royal Opera House – Review
Romance En Pointe from the Royal Ballet with Onegin. Just in time for Valentine’s Day, the Royal Ballet revives Onegin choreographed by John Cranko, a work which was created for the Stuttgart Ballet in 1965 and first performed at the Royal Opera House in 2001. Cranko was the director of the Stuttgart Ballet when he […]
Puccini’s La Bohème at the Royal Opera House – Review
The Ultimate Operatic Romance? La Bohème at the Royal Opera House. With our relentless hounding of pop culture icons through the media such as Princess Diana or Amy Winehouse, we are a culture just as obsessed with the ‘femme fragile’ as the late 19th-century audience for whom the consumptive female heroines of Giuseppe Verdi’s La […]
La Traviata at the Royal Opera House – Review
La Traviata by Giuseppe Verdi – A Revival Worth Catching. It’s the 25th anniversary of Richard Eyre’s landmark production of Giuseppe Verdi’s La Traviata and so with the latest revival having just opened at The Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, we were delighted to be asked to review. La Traviata has one of the great […]
ABBA: Super Troupers the Exhibition
A musical journey into the phenomenon that is ABBA. An incredible 3.5 million people tried to buy tickets to see ABBA in concert in London in 1977. That was more than twice the city’s population at the time. I can only imagine how many more would apply now if the group did make a comeback, […]
Tried and Tested Christmas Shows for 2019
Theatre, Ballet and Cabaret – our pick of what’s on in London for Christmas 2019. Still looking for some entertainment for the festive season this year? Here are a few of the shows we’ve seen and rate. From ballet to musicals – and a few options for those of you who really don’t want to […]
The Nutcracker – Royal Albert Hall – The Birmingham Royal Ballet
The Nutcracker – A Christmas Fairytale Ballet. An outing to the ballet at Royal Albert Hall during the festive season has to be one of the most Christmassy things you can do. On arrival, you can’t help but marvel at the magnificent building lit up in all of its glory and the giant Christmas tree […]
The Ocean at the End of the Lane – Review
Neil Gaiman’s novel on stage at the National Theatre – perfect entertainment for older kids. Coming from the fertile imagination of author Neil Gaiman, the National Theatre’s adaptation of his novel The Ocean at the End of the Lane has just opened with a scary flourish at the NT’s Dorfman Theatre. As with the hit […]
Three Sisters – National Theatre – Review
Inua Ellam’s Three Sisters – a Universal Tale. Three Sisters is a new play written by Inua Ellams based on the Chekhov drama of the same name. Chekhov’s play, first staged in 1901, is set in 1850, in a provincial Russian garrison town where the sisters yearn for their home in Moscow. Ellams’ captivating script […]
Christmas Carol – a Fairy Tale at Wilton’s Music Hall, London E1
What if Scrooge were a woman? This is the central conceit of a new adaptation of Charles Dickens’ perennial Christmas Carol. And what an interesting question it is! Musical theatre and soap opera super-star, Sally Dexter brilliantly portrays Fan Scrooge, surviving sister of Ebenezer and widow of money-lender Jacob Marley. As in the original Christmas […]