Book: Jonathan Prince Music and Lyrics: Lindy Robbins, Dave Bassett and Steve Robson Director: Georgie Rankcom Based on a 1940s play by Howard Richardson, this new musical is a hybrid affair featuring Country and Western songs for the townspeople living in Buck Creek, set in the Appalachians and heavy Rock numbers for the witches and Conjur people who live invisibly alongside the humans. For the duets between the two lovers – inevitably, one witch and one human – we have more familiar musical theatre tunes. It just about works, but other aspects of this supernatural show are less successful. Most…
Author: The Reviews Hub - London
The Reviews Hub - London
The Reviews Hub London is under the editorship of Richard Maguire. The Reviews Hub was set up in 2007. Our mission is to provide the most in-depth, nationwide arts coverage online.
Director and Choreographer: Dada Masilo Tumelo Lekana, representing Hamlet, shouts a selection of famous soliloquies, ripped out of context and delivered with an astounding lack of nuance. The entire court of Denmark quaffs out of goblets full of poison, and their corpses strew the stage in a manner more reminiscent of Jonestown than Elsinore, and notably failing to include the dancer presenting Gertrude, the most flamboyantly noticeable character, danced by Llewelyn Mnguni in a magnificent golden gown. Gertrude apparently escapes the carnage. Does any of this matter? The late South African choreographer, Dada Masilo, has chosen to piggyback her choreography…
Writer: Jamie Radford Director: Sapphire Shoferpoor Skilfully set in motion just before the 2026 US World Cup, Jamie Radford’s revelatory new play is a dynamic, incisive and heartfelt take on the notorious fraternal feud between Bavarian businessmen Rudolf (Rudi) and Adolf (Adi) Dassler, whose hugely influential brands Puma and Adidas have shaped sport globally. The brothers’ revolutionary footwear designs, customised for different sports disciplines like never before, helped to give decisive winning edge to legendary figures like Jesse Owens, Pelé and Muhammad Ali. Sprinting through a vast arena of Dassler folklore, rumour and conjecture – the brothers always lived their…
Choreographer: Julian Nichols, in collaboration with the company Biologically, there is nothing particularly special about a birthday. There is no miraculous transformation at midnight that makes one a changed person from who they were the day before. The concept of marking how our life on the planet has survived another year around the sun is an entirely social construct. Contemporary dance theatre company Bodies in Action explores all aspects of humanity in It’s My Birthday!, a piece that combines dance, clowning, poetry, and magic tricks. It commences with a surprise party, four members of the company jumping out from under…
Writers: Edi de Melo and Patricia Godinho “Please. Thank You. Sorry” is the mantra every girl is made to learn, but when Lyssa, a successful barrister, diverts from this sexist advice, she finds herself served with an NDA and a career in tatters. Maybe spending time with an AI therapist will put her back on track. It’s an intriguing premise by writers Edi De Melo and Patricia Godinha, but the short, patchy scenes that drip-feed the narrative only end in confusing matters. Why, for instance, does Lyssa (played by Godinho) seek help from an AI bot that freely admits that…
Director: Olivia Zerphy It’s the sort of thing which might be set as a drama school exercise – create a piece of theatre out of swimming. Clearly devised and developed over time, The Crawl is now a pretty slick two-hander, although it ricochets about and tries to cover too many bases. Dressed in swimming gear, including goggles (of course), Alexander Burnett and Ellie Whittaker start with a less-than-accurate, very physical account of evolution from blobs in the sea to homo sapiens, who are now keen to get back in the water. Actually, this quasi-Brechtian prologue adds little to a show…
“I’m David Elms, and I’m going to describe a room”, the soft-spoken, unassuming writer and comedian tells us at the outset of what is essentially a highly skilled, one-hour extended party piece. The show does what it says on the tin: with the audience’s assistance, we get a different imaginary room described each performance, and we see Elms interact with its contents in a virtuosic narrative display of mime and physical comedy. It is a deceptively simple idea, brilliantly executed, and a feat of collective memory testing to boot. The first two-thirds of the show involve constructing the room. Suggestions…
Writer: Clare Norburn Director: Nicholas Renton A rumpled bed fills half the small stage. A trio of musicians strike up Purcell’s dramatic Abdelazer overture, where a stately opening in the French Baroque style is followed by an energetic fugue. Clare Norburn’s engaging concert-play imagines Henry Purcell’s last fever-ridden days in 1695. A series of scenes looks back over the composer’s life, filling the gaps in an enigmatic biography with research, conjecture, scenes of life in Restoration London, and plenty of music. The play features 20 compositions by Purcell and a couple of other seventeenth-century numbers, including a haunting verse from…