Review: Last Night A DJ Saved My Life (UK Tour) at the New Wimbledon Theatre

Last Night A DJ Saved My Life (UK Tour)

New Wimbledon Theatre 

Reviewed on Wednesday 3rd February 2016

★

Featuring bucket loads of fake tan, fake accents and fake enthusiasm - as well as an appalling storyline and some very odd mash-ups - Last Night A DJ Saved My Life has embarked on a UK tour following its premiere last year with David Hasselhoff and Shane Richie Jr reprising their performances.

Review: Henry V at the Union Theatre

Henry V 

Union Theatre 

Reviewed on Tuesday 7th July 2015

★★★

War. Power. Death. For centuries, women have suffered with the consequences of these three things. Yet still we are looked on as weak and unsuited for such things. Ahead of a report to be released in 2016 about letting roles in the armed forces be 'determined by ability and not gender' Lazarus Theatre presents an all-female production of Henry V that looks at the role of women in the military.

Review: Return to the Forbidden Planet (UK Tour) at the New Wimbledon Theatre

Return to the Forbidden Planet (UK Tour)

New Wimbledon Theatre 

Reviewed on Monday 23rd March 2015

★★

Twenty-five years ago, when Return to the Forbidden Planet first appeared on the scene, I'd never even heard of Shakespeare. In fact I hadn't even started school. A quarter of a century on and I am a huge fan of the bard, having watched and/or been in almost all of his plays. The Tempest, which this production is loosely based on, remains one of my favourites - and not just because I played Miranda a few years ago but because of its dreamlike, surreal quality and its poetic words.

Review: Room on the Broom at the Lyric Theatre

Room on the Broom

Lyric Theatre

Reviewed on Thursday 4th December 2014
★★★

A cat and a witch, a witch and a cat… oh, but what about a dog, a bird and a frog? Plus a Welsh dragon of course! Clamber aboard and prepare to be whisked away on a magical broom for an adventure like nothing you’ve ever seen before!

Review: Mrs Hudson’s Christmas Corker at Wilton’s Music Hall

Mrs Hudson’s Christmas Corker
Wilton’s Music Hall 

Reviewed on Wednesday 3rd December 2014

★★★★★

We’ve hardly started December and already Christmas is everywhere! Well, so what? I love London during the festive season and if you do too then Wilton’s Music Hall is the ideal location. It smells of Christmas, it’s covered in fairy lights and festive decorations plus their mulled wine is perhaps the best in south-east London.

Review: The Crucible on Screen

The Crucible on Screen 
Filmed at the Old Vic

★★★★

“A fire, a fire is burning! I hear the boot of Lucifer, I see his filthy face! And it is my face, and yours…”

Written sixty years ago about events that took place more than 300 years ago, Arthur Miller’s The Crucible is still just as shocking and relevant.

Review: Stick Man at the Leicester Square Theatre

Stick Man
Leicester Square Theatre
Reviewed on Saturday 15th November 2014
★★★★★

'Stick Man lives in the family tree

With his Stick Lady Love

and their stick children three...’

However, when Stick Man goes for a jog one spring morning he tumbles into one adventure after another, being mistaken for a Pooh Stick, a Nest Twig and even a log for the fire! Will he make it back to his family before Christmas Day or will the outside prove too dangerous?

Review: La Soirée at the Southbank Centre’s Winter Festival

La Soirée

Southbank Centre / Spiegeltent 

Reviewed on Tuesday 11th November 2014

★★★★★

For most theatregoers winter can be a tragic time with panto-fever taking over theatreland (and not to mention children wearing tea towels and carol singers). Let's face it, Christmas comes earlier every year.

Review: Hetty Feather at the Vaudeville Theatre

Hetty Feather 

Vaudeville Theatre 

Reviewed on Wednesday 6th August 2014

★★★★★

Jacqueline Wilson is an author I've always looked up to as a writer. Not only does she cast a spell with the stories she writes, but because her characters are so real their personalities shine through her words so that readers immediately associate with them.

Review: Grim at the Charing Cross Theatre

Grim: A New Musical

Charing Cross Theatre

Reviewed on Tuesday 5th August 2014

★★

With an excellent concept and strong creative team, I was intrigued to see Grim. 

Grim (as in Reaper) heads to a school on Earth to try and understand why humans are so devastated by death. When she's there she makes friends with loner Amelia and falls for Cupid... but it will all end in tears.

Review: Natural Affection at the Jermyn Street Theatre

Natural Affection
Jermyn Street Theatre

Reviewed on Saturday 26th July 2014

★★

"The world looks awful ugly at times..."

Based on a newspaper story about a senseless killing, Natural Affection sees troubled child Donnie (Louis Cardona) return from reform school to live with his mother Sue (Lysette Anthony) and her new boyfriend Bernie (Timothy Knightley). Donnie, who has spent most of his life in an orphanage, has an unnatural love of his mother, but her rejection leads to the play's tragic conclusion.

Review: The Tiger Who Came to Tea at the Lyric Theatre

The Tiger Who Came to Tea 

Lyric Theatre 

Reviewed on Saturday 5th July 2014

Judith Kerr's beloved tale of a very hungry tiger is brought to life in a magical, musical production adapted and directed by David Wood OBE.

Review: Skylight at the Wyndham's Theatre

Matthew Beard & Carey Mulligan 

Skylight

Wyndham's Theatre 

Reviewed on Saturday 21st June 2014

The much anticipated revival of David Hare's Skylight directed by Stephen Daldry sees Bill Nighy reprise his performance as Tom opposite Carey Mulligan as Kyra in her West End debut. Set in Kyra's grotty Kensal Rise flat (Bob Crowley's open plan design set against a backdrop of high rise council flats), Skylight is an intense play dealing with broken relationships, love and loss. 

Review: The Diary of a Nobody at the White Bear Theatre

The Diary of a Nobody

White Bear Theatre 

Reviewed on Tuesday 10th June 2014 

In a world of blogging and social media, every nobody can be a somebody. We follow and interact with people we don't know and want people to take notice of every mundane thing we blog or tweet about.

Review: LIMBO at London Wonderground (Southbank Centre)

LIMBO

London Wonderground (Southbank Centre)

Reviewed on Thursday 15th May 2014

Despite us all being desensitised and unimpressed by anything less than spectacular, there's something about a well-executed circus performance that baffles and delights us all. However, to describe LIMBO as a circus is probably an insult as it's so much more than that.

LIMBO blends music, circus, acrobatics and magic in a unique way which leaves the audience speechless, gasping for breath and feeling a little flustered (you can't deny it - the performers are hot). Although it takes a little while to get going, once it gets underway there's non-stop drama as the performers contort themselves into impossible positions, disappear, reappear and showcase some unimaginable talents.

Musical Director and composer Sxip Shirey described the music as 'jank'. Performed by the cast, the music is "absurdly beautiful" - it’s created with over 50 instruments and sound-making devices, including a banjo, marbles, a polymba and a bullhorn. Everything comes together and perfectly complements the performance, at times it's hard to believe it's all live.

Review: Secret Cinema 21 at a Secret Location

Secret Cinema 21 

Secret Location

Reviewed on Sunday 20th April 2014

Dodgy dealings, bribery and adultery. These are just a few things the citizens of Beaumont City have to deal with on a regular basis.

Dressed in our finest 1920s attire, we arrived at the secret location with no idea what to expect. What we got was quite unexpected - we were completely immersed in the story and got so involved that we were mistaken for actors on several occasions.

Review: Mark Heap and Robert Webb join Jeeves and Wooster in Perfect Nonsense at the Duke of York's Theatre

Jeeves and Wooster in Perfect Nonsense
Duke of York's Theatre

Reviewed on Tuesday 15th April 2014

I have fond memories of Jeeves and Wooster, as my dad had the (video) boxset and we often watched it on Sunday afternoons. Could a stage show really do justice to the wonders that are Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie?

Based on PG Wodehouse's The Code of the Woosters, Perfect Nonsense sees Bertie Wooster (Robert Webb) explaining that he has decided to tell us the story of his aunt and the cow creamer.

Trusty valet Jeeves (Mark Heap) has agreed to take on some of the characters and they've roped in Bertie's aunt's butler Stebbings (Mark Hadfield) to play the rest.

And so it begins... An evening of confusion and mayhem, all ultimately resolved by Jeeves. The cast frequently talk to the audience and each other in the style of a completely unrehearsed play, especially when they realise that two of the characters need to be on stage at the same time... which is difficult as they're both played by the same person!

Review: Handbagged at the Vaudeville Theatre

Handbagged

Vaudeville Theatre

Reviewed on Thursday 10th April 2014

Although I was born in the 1980s, I wasn't even at nursery school by the time Margaret Thatcher's reign at Downing Street was over. However, I did meet Baroness Thatcher when I was older and always found her to be a charming and very clever woman. So, as an admirer of both her and the Queen I was intrigued to see how Moira Buffini would explore the relationship between these two women on stage.

Review: Let The Right One In at the Apollo Theatre

Let The Right One In
Apollo Theatre

Reviewed on Wednesday 2nd April 2014

They say love is blind and that people will do anything to protect the one they love. But would you be able to kill for love? Based on the cult 2004 novel by John Ajvide Lindqvist, Let The Right One In is a love story with gore.

Review: Arthur Darvill joins Once at the Phoenix Theatre

Once

Phoenix Theatre

Reviewed on Tuesday 1st April 2014

"It's only people up there with guitars and other instruments telling and singing their way through an everyday love story..." Enda Walsh

Once is without a doubt a beautiful film. Its simplicity and naturalness ensure that everyone who watches is moved by its message. Under John Tiffany's direction, the stage production takes the film's rawness and develops it into a story that is even more powerful.