Tag Archives: Southwark Playhouse

Book, music and lyrics: Alex James Ellison and Tom Lees Director: Tom Lees Reviewer: Stephen Bates The Small space at Southwark Playhouse is turning into fertile territory for new British musicals. Just a few weeks after The Curious Case of Benjamin Button emerged as, arguably, the fringe hit of 2019, here comes a refreshing offering from a young team that ...

Writer: S Asher Gelman Director: Tom O’Brien Reviewer: Stephen Bates With this year’s Olivier-Award winner, Mathew Lopez’ The Inheritance, having followed quickly on the heels of successful revivals of Mart Crowley’s The Boys in the Band and Tony Kushner’s Angels in America, London has not, in recent times, been short of dramas that chronicle the lives of gay men in ...

Book and Lyrics: Jethro Compton Music and Lyrics: Darren Clark Director: Jethro Compton Reviewer: Karl O'Doherty Cornish mysticism replaces jazz-age American dreaming in this beautiful, engaging, fizzing version of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s famous short story. Transposed and translated from the West Coast of the US to a small fishing village, the curious case now becomes a folk tale revolving around ...

Book: Murray Horwitz and Richard Maltby, Jr.  Music: Fats Waller  Director: Tyrone Huntley  Reviewer: Scott Matthewman There are not many first-time directors and first-time choreographers who could make their debuts in such roles at the Southwark Playhouse, one of the top tier of off-West End fringe venues. Name recognition surely plays a small part: the director is Tyrone Huntley, Olivier ...

Writer: Jerry Sterner Director: Katharine Farmer Reviewer: Maryam Philpott “Money is unconditional acceptance” argues Lawrence Garfinkle, the soulless raider from Wall Street who buys flailing companies only to sell off their assets in Jerry Sterner’s 1989 play which became a film two years later. Revived now at the Southwark Playhouse, Other People’s Money is the evocation of the “greed is good” mantra, ...

Writer: James Phillips Director: Joe Harmston Reviewer: Maryam Philpott For lovers of spy drama, the early years of the Cold War are among the most exciting of the twentieth-century. While Ian Fleming and Graham Greene were creating the templates for espionage fiction and its heroes, in reality all eyes were turning East with the slow unveiling of the Cambridge Five ...

Writer: Alex Oates Director: Dominic Shaw Reviewer: Heather Deacon All any writer can wish for is to ignite impassioned debate with their script and all a producer could wish for is that the production furthers that debate. Given the protesters outside of the Southwark Playhouse on Monday evening, All in a Row is doing just that, with a play that ...

Writer: Anthony Neilson Director: Alex Sutton Reviewer: Stephen Bates When we see a children’s show that is totally unsuitable for children, somehow we know that it must be Christmas. December 2018 at Southwark Playhouse is ushered in with Anthony Neilson’s 65-minute one-act play, a mix of ingredients that include a Santa’s elf, kids’ toys and glitter along with prostitution, hard ...