Tag Archives: King’s Theatre

Writer: John Pielmeier Author: William Peter Blatty Director: Sean Mathias Reviewer: Tom Ralphs A good horror show is about more than haunted house settings and special effects, it’s how music, lighting, sound effects, stage designs and characterisation combine to create something truly chilling. A good horror show script is never about the words and actions that are playing out in ...

Book: Joe Masteroff Music: John Kander Lyrics: Fred Ebb Director: Rufus Norris Reviewer: Gareth Davies Possibly still the best known of John Kander and Fred Ebb’s body of musical theatre classics, Cabaret finds drama amongst the lives and loves of characters in and around a seedy Berlin nightclub of the early 1930s. Referencing the rise of Nazism, personal tragedies unfold ...

Book: Berry Gordy Director: Charles Randolph-Wright Reviewer: Lauren Humphreys Eight hundred dollars, a loan from his family, was all it took for Berry Gordy to set up the legendary Motown Records. Flash forward to 1983, and the eve of Motown’s 25th anniversary. Gordy is reflecting on his career at a point where the label is in deep decline, it’s biggest ...

Writer: Terry Johnson Director: Terry Johnson Reviewer: Tom Ralphs You may not have heard of Jack Cardiff, but you’ve probably seen some of his work. As a cinematographer and director, he worked on many classic, and some not so-classic, movies over a career that spanned six decades. Contrary to the promotional blurb that says Prism is ‘the astonishing true story ...

Adapted for the stage by: Rona Munro Director: Patricia Benecke Reviewer:  Tom Ralphs Does the world need another adaptation of Frankenstein? Is there anything new that can be added to the story? Any contemporary relevance that can be brought out of it or any element of it that has not been explored in previous versions? These are no doubt some of ...

Writer: Sarah Waters Adapted for the stage by: Hattie Naylor Director: Alastair Whatley Reviewer: Tom Ralphs The desire to turn every successful book by every successful author into a film, TV series or stage play is arguably as much about milking a franchise than it is about bringing the writer or the writing to a new audience. While it can ...

Writer: J. B. Priestly Director: Stephen Daldry Reviewer:  Tom Ralphs Much beloved by anyone setting the syllabus for English exams, An Inspector Calls is one of those rare things, a play that works as a piece of entertainment but also delivers a telling social commentary with convincing characters and believable situations. That it remains a regular feature in theatres, rather than ...

Writer: Shelagh Delaney Director: Bijan Sheibani Reviewer:  Tom Ralphs Written in 1958, A Taste of Honey was a ground-breaking play both in terms of its writer – a young working-class female in a world dominated by middle class men – and its subject matter. Moving away from the angry young man drama of the likes of John Osborne, it depicted people ...