Romance Romance continues at Above the Stag Theatre, London until 6 April 2019. Star rating: five stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ Premiered Off-Broadway in 1987, Romance Romance then had an eight-month run on Broadway, and has been seen in London in various incarnations. This production at Above the Stag, a venue dedicated to LGBT+ work, […]
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The Bodyguard – Milton Keynes Theatre & Touring
The Bodyguard continues at the Milton Keynes Theatre until 23 March 2019 and then on tour. Star rating: three stars ★ ★ ★ ✩ ✩
Strike Up the Band – Upstairs at the Gatehouse
Strike Up the Band continues at Upstairs at the Gatehouse, London until 31 March 2019. Star rating: three stars ★ ★ ★ ✩ ✩ Barely two months after the excellent in-house production of Nice Work If You Can Get It, Gershwin is already alive again with the sound of his glorious music, as played by […]
Bernadette Peters lines up UK concert dates
Stage and screen legend Bernadette Peters is heading back to the UK to play five solo concerts this June. The triple Tony Award winner who recently starred on Broadway in the hit revival of Hello, Dolly! will play a London date at the Lyceum Theatre on 10 June 2019, followed by Edinburgh’s Usher Hall (12 […]
Jason Donovan’s back for London Palladium’s new Joseph
Jason Donovan will take on the role of the Pharaoh when he returns to the London Palladium for the eagerly-anticipated new production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat this summer. The star who famously gave a career-changing performance as Joseph at the Palladium in the 1990s, will take to the stage opposite the new, […]
Louise Redknapp to clock in for 9 to 5 the Musical from 25 March 2019
Louise Redknapp will finally step out on the Savoy Theatre stage in her starring role in Dolly Parton’s 9 to 5 The Musical from 25 March 2019. Former pop star Redknapp (Cabaret), who was forced to miss the opening weeks of the production on doctor’s advice after she sustained injuries to her face and wrist […]
Guest stars confirmed for Jason Robert Brown’s Haymarket show
Part of the newly launched Sunday Encounters series, the concert on 31 March 2019 will feature Jason Robert Brown on piano with special guests Carrie Hope Fletcher, Tyrone Huntley and Rachel Tucker.
CD Review: The Clockmaker’s Daughter – Studio Cast Recording
THE CLOCKMAKER’S DAUGHTER – Studio Cast Recording (AUBURN JAM RECORDS – AJR2640) Star rating: five stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ Confession time: when a recording of a new show drops on the mat, my heart sinks. Is it going to be wonderful? Maybe it will be abysmal or just a knock-off of some other show. […]
Chick Flick the Musical – Westside Theatre/Upstairs, New York
Chick Flick the Musical continues at the Westside Theatre/Upstairs, New York until 16 March 2019. Star rating: three stars ★ ★ ★ ✩ ✩ If you’re into chick flicks, deeply and fanatically into chick flicks – that genre of movie patently designed to appeal to female audiences and often bathed in a romantic glow – […]
First casting news for Southwark Playhouse’s Fiver
Initial casting has been announced for the first full production of new British musical FIVER which will receive its world premiere at the Southwark Playhouse this summer. Originally seen in workshop form in 2017 as part of a series of new musicals produced in association with Live At Zédel specifically for the Crazy Coqs, FIVER takes […]
West End’s Jamie to continue into 2020 with Layton Williams in the lead role
Award-winning musical Everybody’s Talking About Jamie is celebrating the opening of a new booking period that will take the show into January 2020. Due to mark its second year in the West End in November, the hit show which was originally planned as a limited season at the Apollo Theatre is now booking up to […]
New Aussie soap spoof show Summer Street to play Brighton and London
Spoof show Summer Street – The Hilarious Aussie Soap Opera Musical will bring a touch of Australian sunshine to the Brighton Fringe ahead of its London debut at the Waterloo East Theatre in May 2019. Taking its inspiration from the 1990s heyday of the Australian soap opera, the show which started life as a jukebox […]
The Project – White Bear Theatre
The Project continues at the White Bear Theatre, London until 23 March 2019. Star rating: two stars ★ ★ ✩ ✩ ✩ Musical theatre encompasses a wide range of styles and formats. One of these is the play with songs, perhaps exemplified by works as wide ranging as Brecht/Weill, Blood Brothers, Girl From the North […]
Rags – Hope Mill Theatre, Manchester
Rags continues at Hope Mill Theatre, Manchester until 6 April 2019. Star rating: three stars ★ ★ ★ ✩ ✩ The shortness of Rags’ original Broadway run is almost legendary in itself. Despite the pedigree of its creative team, this tale of Jewish immigrants scratching out a living on the mean streets of Manhattan’s Lower […]
Catching up with the West End cast of Waitress
With the West End production of Waitress having opened just a few days ago, we are looking back to the time Musical Theatre Review’s Tal Fox joined the London cast of Waitress to see how they were getting on during rehearsals. After watching fabulous performances of ‘What Baking Can Do’, ‘It Only Takes a Taste’ and ‘What’s […]
Lorna Dallas – Stages – Live at Zédel
Lorna Dallas performed Stages at Live at Zédel, London. Star rating: five stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ The art of cabaret is the most difficult of the performing arts to get right. The idea should be for the artist to create their own world into which they invite the audience to participate. The vital thing […]
The Limit – Vault Festival
The Limit continues as part of the Vault Festival, London until 10 March 2019. Star rating: three stars ★ ★ ★ ✩ ✩ In the history of mathematics, a number of French names are prominent – both Laplace and Lagrange, contemporaries at the French Academy of Sciences, for example. At the start of the 19th century, as […]
Waitress – Adelphi Theatre, London
Waitress continues at the Adelphi Theatre, London. Star rating: four stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ✩ There is much to love about Waitress, a bittersweet musical that has conquered Broadway and looks set for a long run in London’s West End. Sara Bareilles, the West Coast singer-songwriter responsible for the music and lyrics, is a […]
Featured Content – Starquest Performers College: Why go big and brash, when you can go small and exceptional?
Craig Bartley, Principal and Course Director of Starquest Performers College, examines the truth behind why so many performing arts colleges are overpriced… I have been in the performing arts for 30-plus years. I have starred in the West End and on Broadway stages and travelled the world. Music, song and dance has been my life. […]
Sing Easy – Piano Works, London
Star rating: four stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ✩ There’s a new trend in musical theatre which makes the experience more interactive for showtune fans. Countless musicals have introduced a sing-a-long night, there’s a musicals Massaoke making the rounds, and now musical fans can settle in for a fun night of dinner, drinks and their […]
The Band – Milton Keynes Theatre and Touring
The Band continues at the Milton Keynes Theatre until 9 March 2019 and then on tour until 16 March. Star rating: three stars ★ ★ ★ ✩ ✩ At the core of Take That-inspired musical The Band, currently back on tour after a stint in the West End at the end of last year, is […]
Musicals Come From Away and Company lead Oliviers 2019 nominees
Marianne Elliott’s critically acclaimed gender-swapped version of Company and the Tony Award-winning Come From Away lead the field in the nominations for the Olivier Awards 2019 with Mastercard. Illustrating the range and diversity of musical theatre currently playing in the West End, the hit revival of Stephen Sondheim and George Furth’s Company and the more […]
Six – Arts Theatre
Six continues at the Arts Theatre until January 2020. Star rating: five stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ All too often when one returns to a West End musical after over a year, some of the sparkle has gone, and there’s a sense beginning to creep in that those on stage are just starting to go through […]
Royal Exchange’s West Side Story – cast announced
Andy Coxon and Gabriela Garcia will play star-crossed lovers Tony and Maria in The Royal Exchange’s re-imagining of the classic musical West Side Story. Coxon, whose extensive genre credits include Yank! at the Charing Cross Theatre and the West End production of Beautiful – The Carole King Musical, will star opposite Mexican-born actress Garcia who […]
Fiddler on the Roof (in Yiddish) – Stage 42, New York
Fiddler on the Roof (in Yiddish) continues at Stage 42, New York until 1 September 2019. Star rating: five stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ The village of Anatevka is vibrantly alive again, and this time around, the inhabitants seem more at home than ever. They’re all speaking Yiddish. This Yiddish-language production of Fiddler on the […]
Winners of the 19th Annual WhatsOnStage Awards announced
At a ceremony at the Prince of Wales Theatre hosted by Vicky Vox and Kobna Holdbrook-Smith, the winners of the 19th Annual WhatsOnStage Awards were announced – the only major theatre awards decided entirely by the theatregoers themselves. Hamilton continues to dominate awards season, leading the way with five wins from 12 nominations – Best Actor in a Musical for Jamael Westman, Best […]
Stars line up for second voyage of musical theatre cruise Floating Festival Stages
Alfie Boe and Sheridan Smith will be among the 2019 line-up of genre favourites climbing aboard the second Stages floating musical theatre festival this autumn. Boe will follow his touring and recording partner Michael Ball, who headlined the UK’s first specialist musical theatre festival at sea last year, to take to the high seas along […]
Sheridan Smith to be The Narrator in London Palladium’s Joseph
Sheridan Smith is the first big name signing for the eagerly-anticipated new production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat which will open at the London Palladium in the summer. The BAFTA and Olivier Award-winning star of Funny Girl and Legally Blonde has been tempted back into the West End to play an enhanced version of […]
Performance Preparation Academy – Zorba
Zorba by Performance Preparation Academy at Eve Lyons Theatre, Guildford. Star rating: five stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ What a find Zorba is! Kander and Ebb’s 1968 musical – more a play with music – never made it to the West End and had been gathering dust until PPA’s third-year students have done it proud […]
Interview: Lorna Dallas brings her latest show Stages to Live at Zédel
Straight from Birdland in New York, LORNA DALLAS brings her new one-woman show Stages to Crazy Coqs at Live at Zédel on 6 March 2019. Here the singer tells Michael Darvell us about the show and how it came about… How did Stages go down in New York? Ab fab! It was really wonderful to […]
The Pirates of Penzance – Wilton’s Music Hall
The Pirates of Penzance continues at Wilton’s Music Hall, London until 16 March 2019. Star rating: five stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ I’m not given to gushing but sometimes a show really does deserve paeons of praise. This revival of Sasha Regan’s 2010 all male Pirates of Penzance is fabulous. By turns wry, silly, poignant […]
Rock of Ages – New Wimbledon Theatre and Touring
Rock of Ages continues at the New Wimbledon Theatre, London until 2 March, then on tour until 3 August 2019. Star rating: two stars ★ ★ ✩ ✩ ✩ Tired, sordid, inane, predictable, dire, fatuous… these were some of the more printable epithets awarded to jukebox musical Rock of Ages when it first rocked up […]
Merrily We Roll Along – Laura Pels Theatre, New York
Merrily We Roll Along continues at Roundabout Theatre Company’s Laura Pels Theatre, New York until 7 April 2019. Star rating: five stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ Yes, it’s another day and another iteration of Stephen Sondheim and George Furth’s Merrily We Roll Along, the show that flopped on Broadway in 1981 and through a series […]
Kiss Me Quickstep – Queen’s Theatre, Hornchurch
Kiss Me Quickstep continues at the Queen’s Theatre, Hornchurch until 9 March 2019 before transferring to the New Wolsey Theatre, Ipswich from 13 to 23 March. Star rating: five stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ In 2012 Amanda Whittington was awarded the Making Tracks bursary to research a new piece of work and where did she […]
Dreamgirls’ Durone Stokes releases debut single
Dreamgirls star Durone Stokes has recorded a re-imagined, gospel-flavoured version of one of the hit show’s most popular songs, ‘Family’. Co-produced with leading UK music producer Byron Hosking, the South East London born artist has returned to the song he performed when he played the role of C.C. White in the award-winning Savoy Theatre run of […]
Scream Phone – Vault Festival
Scream Phone at The Vault Festival, London. Star rating: four stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ✩ Swipe Right Theatre Company returns to the Vault Festival following their critically acclaimed sell out run of 2 become 1 in both London and Edinburgh. Kerrie Thomason and Natasha Granger’s new immersive musical Scream Phone is an evening of […]
Jason Manford to play detective in Curtains tour
Comedian Jason Manford will take on the central role of the musical-loving detective Frank Cioffi in a major new touring production of Kander and Ebb’s Tony Award-winning Curtains. The production will launch at Bromley’s Churchill Theatre on 4 October 2019 at the start of a UK and Ireland tour which will end at the Wolverhampton […]
Follies – National Theatre
Follies continues at the National Theatre (Olivier Theatre), London until 11 May 2019. Star rating: five stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ We are extremely happy to report that Follies, Stephen Sondheim and James Goldman’s bitter-sweet, truly great 1971 musical, is alive and well and still living at the National. Back less than 14 months after […]
Cast for Rourke’s Donmar farewell production of Sweet Charity
The Donmar Warehouse has announced further casting for the production of Sweet Charity which will mark artistic director Josie Rourke’s farewell production after nearly a decade at the helm of the prestigious venue. As previously announced the production will reunite Rourke with stage and screen star Anne Marie Duff, the award-winning actress, who previously appeared […]
Sing A Long with the Six Queens in June
Fans of the critically-acclaimed musical Six will be able to join in the fun at the show’s first Sing Along performance at the Arts Theatre this summer. Now extended until January 2020, the second London season for the rock-flavoured show in which the wives of Henry VIII take centre stage, will break new ground on […]
Highest of Highs Lowest of Lows – Above the Arts Theatre
Highest of Highs Lowest of Lows – Songs of Love & Life with Marek Rymaszewski at Above the Arts Theatre, London. Star rating: three stars ★ ★ ★ ✩ ✩ Subtitled ‘Songs of Love and Life with Marek Rymaszewski’, this highly personal show lays bare the raw feelings, passions and pains of this distinctive composer, presented […]
Zog – Rose Theatre, Kingston and Touring
Zog continues at Rose Theatre, Kingston until 23 February 2019, then on tour until 27 July. Star rating: five stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ Whether you’re 7 or 77, when something is done really well age doesn’t come into it, you simply take joy out of its excellence. Watching Julia Donaldson’s Zog lovingly interpreted on […]
Only Fools and Horses The Musical – Theatre Royal Haymarket
Only Fools and Horses The Musical continues at the Theatre Royal Haymarket until 31 August 2019. Star rating: three stars ★ ★ ★ ✩ ✩ The much-anticipated musical version of John Sullivan’s beloved Peckham-based sitcom finally opens at the Theatre Royal Haymarket. It’s a risky business, given the near-religious adulation the British public seem to […]
Come From Away – Phoenix Theatre
Come From Away continues at the Phoenix Theatre, London. Star rating: five stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ There’s something about living on an island which makes a community feel somewhat special. For Britons, that feeling has of late been taking a negative turn: distrust and abuse of those who are different, and a political process […]
Nkeki Obi-Melekwe wins lead role in West End’s Tina The Musical
Pop Queen Tina Turner has given her royal seal of approval to the young actress chosen to take over the title role in Tina – The Tina Turner Musical at the Aldwych Theatre from April. Commenting on the casting of Nkeki Obi-Melekwe, who will make her London debut in the hit show from 15 April, […]
Further casting news for The Light in the Piazza
West End favourites Rob Houchen, Celinde Schoenmaker and Liam Tamne will join the previously announced Renée Fleming and Dove Cameron in this summer’s special production of Tony Award-winning The Light In The Piazza. Recently seen on Broadway in the revival of Carousel, American soprano Fleming will make her London theatre debut as Margaret Johnson alongside […]
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street – Lyric Theatre, Belfast
Sweeney Todd runs at the Lyric Theatre, Belfast until 23 February 2019. Star rating: four stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ✩ Will I ever tire of seeing Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler’s Sweeney Todd? I don’t think so, not when it’s the catalyst for so much inventive reworking and resuscitation. For me, it’s Sondheim’s greatest, most […]
Mole & Gecko – Half Moon Theatre
Mole & Gecko at the Half Moon Theatre, London & Touring. Star rating: two stars ★ ★ ✩ ✩ ✩ Billed as a rap musical, this show is really a story with occasional songs. Simon Mole, rapper and poet, and Gecko – a singer guitarist and composer – are both personable young men who engage […]
[title of show] – Above the Stag
[title of show] continues at Above the Stag, London until 10 March 2019. Star rating: four stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ✩ In 2004, budding musical theatre writers Jeff Bowen and Hunter Bell decided to enter the New York Musical Theatre Festival. Starting from scratch with just three weeks until the deadline, they chose an unusual subject […]
Bad Girls – Upstairs at the Gatehouse
Bad Girls continues at Upstairs at the Gatehouse, London until 3 March 2019. Star rating: one star ★ ✩ ✩ ✩ ✩ Caught between Orange is the New Black and Chicago with neither the skill or charm of either, we are welcomed into the world of fictional HMP Larkhall and the musical version of the […]
