Tag Archives: Judy Garland

Reviewer: Scott Matthewman Drag culture is in flux at the moment. For decades, occasional nights hosting karaoke in gay bars have been the best most acts could hope for: in recent years, though, the ascendancy of TV reality show RuPaul’s Drag Race from cult hit to mainstream phenomenon has seen an influx of American-style drag performance alongside more traditional, British ...

Writer and Director: Ray Rackham Reviewer:Maryam Philpott The movie stars of the 1940s and 1950s seem impossibly glamorous to us now, framed forever in silvery black and white or glorious Technicolor, reminding us of a different era of film-making. Whatever their particular skills – be it acting, singing, dancing or all three – we know that in the studio system ...

A new Ticket lottery, aimed solely at 18-25 year olds, is launched today [9 June 2016]. The Through the Mill Ticket Lottery will enable young adults between the ages of 18 and 25 a chance to win two top price seats for each performance of Through the Mill,Ray Rackham’s play charting the life and career of actress and singer Judy ...

Writer: Peter Quilter Director: Daniel Buckroyd Reviewer: Mel Duncan ‘Forget your troubles, come on get happy’. A dark and seedy underbelly to the glittering silver screen is exposed when one considers the use of amphetamines on set. Fed to young actors by doctors on studio payroll, these pills were a way of enabling Mickey Rooney and contemporaries cope with the ...

Writer: Peter Quilter Director: Daniel Buckroyd Reviewer: Lauren Humphreys Judy Garland is in London with her soon-to-be fifth husband Mickey Deans, ostensibly to complete a six-week residency at the Talk of the Town, but in reality to pay off her substantial debts and hopefully kick-start her career. Forty-seven years on from her demise, Garland’s name still has the power to ...

Writer: Peter Quilter Director: Daniel Buckroyd Reviewer: Selwyn Knight   It’s December 1968 and Judy Garland has been booked to perform at London’s Talk of the Town for a five-week run. There can be little doubt that she needs this engagement – previous concerts in Australia have been a shambles thanks to her chaotic personal life and her finances have ...

Writer: Peter Quilter Director: Daniel Buckroyd Reviewer: Scott Matthewman   There is little doubt that Judy Garland was one of the 20th Century’s most engaging performers – or that the somewhat erratic performance style, particularly late in life, was both fuelled by, and a result of, the drug regime to which she was addicted. Starting from her early days in ...

Writer: Peter Quilter Director: Daniel Buckroyd Reviewer: Glen Pearce   Even 47 years after her death, there is still as much a fascination with Judy Garland’s personal life as there is with her stage and screen career. Garland’s life is the ultimate showbiz tale, the child star forced into an endless spiral of drink and drugs by her stage mother ...