Book, Music, Lyrics and Director: Tony Hawks Reviewer: Maryam Philpott The cowboy musical is a surprisingly underexploited genre; the larger than life characters, the dramatic showdowns and the introspective songs a seemingly perfect fit with the pillars of stage musicals. Middle class angst, however, is a far more common topic for drama so Tony Hawks has combined the two to ...

Writer: Peter Hamilton Director: Ken McClymont Reviewer: Richard Maguire The Old Red Lion’s new production comes with so many trigger warnings that you climb the stairs to the theatre with some trepidation. Sheets of A4 pasted to the walls above the bannisters repeat the warnings on your short ascent. Scenes of murder! Loud noises! Strobe lighting! Offensive language! You may ...

Writer: James Kettle Director: Selina Cadell and Didi Hopkins Reviewer: David Guest Walt Disney regarded him as the epitome of an English gentleman. For 40 years cinema audiences enjoyed the celebrated character actor in some 50 films, many coming to see him as a surrogate father after he played Mr Banks in Mary Poppins in 1964. Not many will have realised ...

Book: John Weidman Music: David Shire Lyrics: Richard Maltby Reviewer: Maryam Philpott Films from the 1980s are the bedrock of musical theatre right now, something about their big-hearted themes, easy social messaging and optimistic storytelling suits the frothiest of genres perfectly. 9 to 5opened earlier this year following a popular run for Heathers: The Musical and soon a song-filled version of ...

Writer: Oscar Wilde Director: Dominic Dromgoole Reviewer: Scott Matthewman A Woman of No Importance has been described as one of Oscar Wilde’s lesser works. Certainly, it has never tapped into the public consciousness the way that The Importance of Being Earnest has done, nor has it introduced such engaging metaphorical concepts as the eponymous portrait in the attic in The Picture of ...

Writer: Agatha Christie Director: Gareth Armstrong Reviewer: Dan English There are twists, gasps and foul play aplenty in the hard-working touring production of the long-running West End hit The Mousetrap, penned by renowned sleuth scribe Agatha Christie. Cut off from the rest of civilisation in the midst of a heavy winter storm, the guests as the newly opened Monkswell Manor ...

Writer/Director: Alexander Zeldin Reviewer: Scott Matthewman Faith is a four-year-old girl who has been taken into the care system while her mother Beth (Susan Lynch) tries to get her back. Charity is a former resident of the hostel where Alan Williams’s Bernard and Corey Peterson’s Anthony have been staying, but who recently died. That just leaves hope. Hope is in ...

Writer: Paloma Pedrero Translator: Catherine Boyle Director: Simone Coxall Reviewer: Margarita Shivarova Performed in a studio theatre stage, the English translation of this play offers a memorable experience through both its story and the choices made by the production team. Soon after the audience meets Lucia(Lanna Joffrey) and Angel(Samuel Brewer), two strangers, inwardly alike in their frustration with life, norms ...