Review: Alice in Wonderland at St Paul’s Church

Alice in Wonderland
St Paul’s Church
Reviewed on Friday 2nd August 2013

As you enter the rabbit hole, which is a ditch that enfolds around the churchyard of St Paul's and through which you must walk to get from the entrance to the first playing space, you begin to glean an impression of the wonderfully magic and immersive night of theatre ahead.

Review: Julius Caesar at St Paul’s Church

Julius Caesar
St Paul’s Church

Reviewed on Monday 1st July 2013

Iris Theatre's production of Shakespeare's historical and political tragedy begins unconvincingly but ends magnificently as this interior and exterior promenade piece meanders its way  through ideals of commonwealth and the corruptive nature of power.

Review: Pride and Prejudice at the Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre

Pride and Prejudice

Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre 

Reviewed on Wednesday 26th June 2013

This adaptation of the classic Jane Austin novel provides a charming night at the theatre, despite its length and its tendency to slip into pantomime.

Review: Socrates And His Clouds at the Jermyn Street Theatre

Socrates And His Clouds 

Jermyn Street Theatre

Reviewed on Thursday 6th June 2013

Socrates And His Clouds is, not surprisingly, a very European, specifically Greek, night of theatre. But don't be fooled by the weightiness of the title: this play does not take itself too seriously.

Review: The Great Gatsby at Riverside Studios

The Great Gatsby

Riverside Studios (Studio 3)

Reviewed on Friday 24th May 2013

I have never read The Great Gatsby but my understanding is that the perspective of the novel is primarily internal, focussing on the thoughts and emotions of its characters and little on action and events. A work difficult to translate on stage, yet this new musical adaptation manages to create an entertaining and mostly light-hearted evening through clear story-telling, a lyrical soundtrack and some captivating performances.

Review: Tanzi Libre at the Southwark Playhouse

Tanzi Libre

Southwark Playhouse

Reviewed on Tuesday 21st May 2013

This inaugural production at the new Southwark Playhouse deserves full marks for ingenuity. However, it lacks the tension and attack needed to make this metaphorical and literal battle of the sexes a convincing and engaging piece of theatre.

Review: Hutch at Riverside Studios

Hutch

Riverside Studios (Studio 3)

Reviewed on Friday 18th May 2013

Hutch is a bio-drama charting the early, successful years of Lesley Hutchinson's (affectionately known as Hutch) career when he played and sang in the cabaret houses of Paris and London. This is a play about love, focusing on Hutch's intimate friendship with Cole Porter and subsequent affair with the English Lady Edwina Mountbatten.

Review: LIZA (on an E) at the Vaudeville Theatre

LIZA (on an E)

Vaudeville Theatre

Reviewed on Wednesday 15th May 2013

LIZA (on an E) provides a thoroughly excellent evening of inextinguishable happiness, great fun and fantastic music. Despite not being the biggest Liza Minelli fan I had a great time! Liza (on an E) is more than a parody of the star in concert. Trevor Ashley perfectly embodies an accentuated version of Minelli. Despite the deliberately exaggerated accent, complete with speech impediments and demonic laugh, and the physical awkwardness, Ashley remains true to Liza.

Review: Merrily We Roll Along at the Harold Pinter Theatre

Merrily We Roll Along

Harold Pinter Theatre

Reviewed on Thursday 2nd May 2013

“You don't write what you know [indicates head], but what you know [indicates heart].” In this line that appears both at the beginning and the end of Merrily, I cannot work out whether Sondheim and Furth are being ironic or giving serious advice or maybe Sondheim is admitting an apology to people he forgot about as he became more successful, because for the most part this show appeals solely to the head and only momentarily touches the heartstrings. But then, what else would one expect from a Sondheim musical and in many ways this mid-canon piece is typical of the composer in its breadth of scope, its themes of the artist and the business of theatre and its elements of autobiography.

Review: Californian Lives at the King's Head Theatre

Californian Lives
King's Head Theatre

Reviewed on Monday 22nd April 2013

The successful delivery of a one-act, one-person play is difficult to achieve and this series of three disconnected monologues, written by Martin Foreman, is unfortunately indicative of this. The evening, entitled 'Californian Lives', presents perspectives of modern day America from three different life-stages: young adulthood, middle-age and old-age. The setting of California seems arbitrary; these stories are universally first-world and the location should not be seen as the connecting seam the evening's title suggests.

Review: Love vs Hate at the Tristan Bates Theatre

Love vs Hate

Tristan Bates Theatre

Reviewed on Monday 15th April 2013

'People don't commit suicide because they want to die; they do it to stop the pain'. A quote from the evening's entertainment that is as cheerful as you will feel when you leave the theatre. Love vs Hate is an exploration of familial relationships and the causes and effects of suicide told from two very different perspectives. The first half of the evening is a play by Chantelle Dusette entitled Wounds, which deals with the theme of Hate. After the interval is the second play To The End of Love by Edwin Preece, dealing with Love.

Review: The Lamplighters at The Tabard Theatre

The Lamplighters

The Tabard Theatre

Reviewed on Thursday 21st March 2013 (Press Night)

This brand new play is a well-paced and engaging supernatural murder mystery, which looks at how three middle-aged men deal with an unresolved past.

The plot focuses on three ex-coppers who have reconvened to commemorate the ten year anniversary of a brutal, local triple murder, a case that they had worked on together but was never satisfactorily solved. During the evening, with the help of two strangers, they discover the truth of what really happened that night.