Tag Archives: Theatre

The VAULT Festival returns to London’s Waterloo next week. Now in its seventh year, it is the capital’s biggest and most exciting arts and entertainment festival. Over eight weeks, the cavernous spaces under Waterloo station will be home to theatre, comedy and cabaret. This year over 400 shows will be performed. It’s a huge undertaking but Head of Programming Becky ...

Writer: Richard O’ Brien Director: Christopher Luscombe Reviewer: Matt Forrest The Time Warp has been a firm favourite at social clubs, school discos, and family gatherings for an age. Regardless if it’s the original and to a lesser extent the 1987 cover version by Damian: it is always guaranteed to pack out any dance floor and get people out of their ...

Director:  Charles Randolph-Wright Musical arrangement: Ethan Popp Choreographers: Patricia Wilcox and Warren Adams Reviewer: Julia Beasley If a musical is actually about music, it should surely celebrate that music in all its full-blown glory. Motown the Musical is undoubtedly about some of the best soul music of the twentieth century. So it’s a bit disappointing that this show romps over-excitedly through its vast ...

Writer: Mark Ravenhill Director:  Vicky Featherstone Reviewer:  Richard Maguire Some of us can clearly remember the cane, the form of corporal punishment so beloved in boys’ schools of the past. It was banned in 1986 in state schools but lingered on in private schools until the turn of the century. Nowadays the cane is a paradoxical symbol representing both ‘the ...

Writer and Director: Anthony Neilson Reviewer:  Richard Maguire   The National Theatre’s recipe for Christmas: Take a classic Edgar Allan Poe story and season with plenty of Hitchcock; Add a splash of The Exorcist and a pinch of Misery; Place in The Dorfman for two and a half hours; Serve with postmodern irony. It’s definitely a recipe for success. Surprisingly, The Tell-Tale Heart is Anthony ...

Writer: Alain Boubil & Jean-Marc Natel Adaptation: Trevor Nunn & John Caird Music: Claude-Michel Schönberg Lyrics: Herbert Kretzmer Direction: Laurence Connor & James Powell Reviewer: Saoirse Anton After thirty-three years of near-continuous success, it’s clear that the creators of Les Misérables have done something right, and this touring production from Cameron Mackintosh is not about to buck that trend. In ...

Writers: Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais Director:  Gordon Anderson Reviewer:  Richard Maguire Based on the memoir I Was Bono’s Doppelgänger by The Telegraph’s rock critic Neil McCormick, Chasing Bono is a gentle comedy about childhood aspirations. It’s written by the veteran pair Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais who gave us Porridgeand What Ever Happened to the Likely Lads, but, sadly, ...

Creator: Eiina Alminas Reviewer:  Richard Maguire Plays about jilted brides seem a little old-fashioned in 2018, and yet in her one-woman show Elina Alminas is Laura who has been left at the altar not once, but three times.  Over 60 minutes we see her crumble with rage, but unfortunately, we remain none the wiser to why the men in her ...