Fascinating Aida’s Liza Pulman will bring her third solo show Liza Pulman Sings Streisand back to London early in 2019. Following a sell-out run at The Other Palace and sold-out performances at Wilton’s Music Hall, Liza Pulman Sings Streisand will return to the capital to play the Lyric Theatre to play four Monday night shows […]
Archive | Onstage RSS feed for this section
Musical Theatre Review 2018 – Five-Star Show Round-Up
Musical Theatre Review reflects on another stunning and diverse year of theatre. Here is a round-up of five-star reviews from 2018 productions in the West End, on the London Fringe, in the regions and on tour (plus a sprinkling of Broadway openings too). With thanks to all our awesome contributors. JANUARY Six – Arts Theatre, London […]
Nativity! The Musical – Eventim Apollo London
Nativity! The Musical continues at Eventim Apollo London until 29 December 2018. Star rating: five stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ An excitable buzz outside and inside the venue at the gala performance of this eagerly-awaited celebrity-laden production more than hinted this was going to be something pretty special. Spectacular and hugely entertaining, it’s a […]
‘Another Op’nin’, Another Show’: Cindy Belliot plays Hattie in Kiss Me, Kate at Sheffield Crucible
Sheffield Theatres’ Christmas musical is a major revival of Cole Porter’s Kiss Me, Kate at the Crucible Theatre, directed by Paul Foster. The production continues until 12 January 2019. CINDY BELLIOT plays Hattie. Her theatre credits include Sweet Charity (Nottingham Playhouse), Aladdin (Prince Edward Theatre), Motown (Shaftesbury Theatre), Fela (Broadway, National Theatre London and USA tour), The Hurly Burly Show […]
INTERVIEW: Composer & musical director Glyn Kerslake brings The Nightmare Before Christmas back to Salisbury Playhouse
Lesley Bates writes: When it comes to Christmas, Salisbury has a special place in GLYN KERSLAKE’s heart. For the past seven years or so, the West End veteran has become a regular fixture at Salisbury Playhouse over the festive season, either as performer or musical director or both, usually for the musically-themed revues offered by […]
INTERVIEW: We catch up with the Hot Gay Time Machine team: Zak Ghazi-Torbati, Toby Marlow & Lucy Moss
The same team that brought the hugely acclaimed Six to the stage have brought the sold-out Edinburgh Fringe hit Hot Gay Time Machine to the West End for a ‘gaytastic Christmas season’. TOBY MARLOW, LUCY MOSS and ZAK GHAZI-TORBATI met during their time at Cambridge where they worked together to create theatre that has proven […]
White Christmas – Curve Leicester
White Christmas continues at Curve Leicester until 13 January 2019. Star rating: four stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ✩ A year after Scrooge, artistic director of Curve, Nikolai Foster, is treating Leicester audiences to much lighter fare with a brand new staging of White Christmas, the famous holiday movie favourite put on the musical theatre […]
Gary Williams: A Swingin’ Christmas – Live At Zédel
Gary Williams: A Swingin’ Christmas continues at Live at Zédel, London until 23 December 2018. Star rating: five stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ It just would not be Christmas without Gary Williams kicking off the festivities at the Crazy Coqs. The opening number ‘Merry Christmas Everyone’ contains the line “Have a party tonight” and a […]
Nice Work If You Can Get It – Upstairs At The Gatehouse
Nice Work If You Can Get It continues at Upstairs At The Gatehouse, London until 27 January 2019. Star rating: five stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ The Gatehouse has done it again with the first-rate UK, and I think European, premiere production of the Gershwin jukebox musical as its 21st Christmas musical offering. One […]
Rumpelstiltskin – Queen Elizabeth Hall
Rumpelstiltskin continues at the South Bank Centre’s Royal Elizabeth Hall until 6 January 2019. Star rating: two stars ★ ★ ✩ ✩ ✩ The European fairy tale of Rumpelstiltskin, best known by the version collected by the Brothers Grimm, is given a modern twist by Australian theatre company Windmill, receiving its UK premiere on the South Bank […]
The Rocky Horror Show – Theatre Royal, Brighton and Touring
The Rocky Horror Show continues at the Theatre Royal, Brighton until 5 January 2019 and then on tour until 2 November. Star rating: four stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ✩ In the 45 years since Richard O’Brien debuted The Rocky Horror Show, it has accrued the kind of fanatical cult status that very few shows can. Corset and […]
Current cast of Six will return for the West End run – with two new additions…
The award-winning original West End cast of the critically-acclaimed musical Six will return for the show’s second season in the capital. Announced in October, just a few days before the end of the show’s season at Covent Garden’s Arts Theatre, the rock-flavoured show in which the wives of Henry VIII take centre stage will return […]
Caroline, or Change – Playhouse Theatre
Caroline, or Change continues at the Playhouse Theatre, London until 6 April 2019. Star rating: five stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ After acclaimed runs at the Chichester Festival’s Minerva and London’s Hampstead Theatre, Caroline, or Change, a collaboration between Fun Home composer Jeanine Tesori and Angels in America author Tony Kushner, makes its much-anticipated […]
Murder For Two – The Other Palace
Murder For Two continues at The Other Palace, London until 13 January 2019 Star rating: four stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ✩ Think Cluedo The Musical, with 13 characters played by just two actors, throw in an upright piano, a shot dead famous novelist, plenty of whodunnit red herrings and some rousing songs and there you have Murder […]
Kiss Me, Kate – Crucible Theatre, Sheffield
Kiss Me, Kate continues at the Crucible Theatre, Sheffield until 12 January 2019. Star rating: four stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ✩ Cole Porter’s music for Kiss Me, Kate has everything needed for a delightful evening in the theatre: comedic wit (‘Brush Up Your Shakespeare’); one of the greatest of torch songs (‘So in Love’); spectacular opportunities for […]
Hansel and Gretel – Rose Theatre, Kingston
Hansel and Gretel continues at the Rose Theatre, Kingston until 6 January 2019. Star rating: five stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ Forget all those predictable pantos, especially those with smutty innuendo that you just hope and pray your children/grandchildren won’t understand and get yourselves down to Kingston for this brilliant adaptation of one of […]
The Wizard of Oz – Blackpool Opera House
The Wizard of Oz continues at Blackpool Opera House until 30 December 2018. Star rating: four stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ✩ It was good news and bad news for Dorothy Gale and her motley friends as they prepared to traverse the legendary long and winding cobbled Yellow Brick Road in search of Emerald City’s enigmatic Wizard. Just […]
Stephen Sondheim Society presents… Alex Young and Friends – Phoenix Garden
Stephen Sondheim Society presents… Alex Young and Friends at the Phoenix Garden, London Star rating: five stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ Cram 75 Sondheim fans into a glorified garden shed in the shadow of the Phoenix Theatre on a freezing December night, put the delicious Alex Young on London’s tiniest stage and somehow you […]
Mrs Beeton Says – Redgrave Theatre, Bristol
Mrs Beeton Says was performed at the Redgrave Theatre, Bristol. Star rating: three stars ★ ★ ★ ✩ ✩ ‘As with the commander of an army, so it is with the mistress of the house.’ Penned in 1859, these words were to provide women with a route map towards domestic bliss, and greatly broadened horizons, for a hundred […]
A Chorus Line – New York City Center
A Chorus Line was performed at New York City Center. Star rating: five stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ Just a year after the spectacular production reinventing Brigadoon, just released on CD, the New York City Center Annual Gala presented this year another landmark musical, one that doesn’t need to be reinvented. The immortal A Chorus Line via Baayork Lee and Bob Avian was just as Michael Bennett originally conceived, directed and choreographed […]
Clueless, the Musical – The Pershing Square Signature Center, New York
Clueless, the Musical continues at The Pershing Square Signature Center, New York until 12 January 2019. Star rating: five stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ Back in 1995, film director and writer Amy Heckerling had an iconic hit with her comedy of overindulged Beverly Hills teenagers, Clueless. It’s a movie, she said in a recent […]
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz – Octagon Theatre, Bolton at the University of Bolton Stadium
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz continues at the Premier Suite, University of Bolton until 31 December 2018. Star rating: two stars ★ ★ ✩ ✩ ✩ We’re not in Kansas anymore – instead, due to the extensive refurbishment of the Octagon Theatre, the venue’s festive production is performed from the Premier Suite at the University of Bolton Stadium, […]
Paul Taylor-Mills announces new musical theatre festival – MT Fest UK – for The Other Palace in 2019
Paul Taylor-Mills has revealed details of a festival of new musical theatre at The Other Palace planned for early next year. The leading independent producer who followed his two-year tenure as artistic director of the popular London venue by taking on the role of affiliate producer has unveiled plans for MT Fest UK, a showcase […]
The Night Before Christmas – Salisbury Playhouse
The Night Before Christmas continues at the Salberg Studio, Salisbury Playhouse until 30 December 2018. Star rating: four stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ✩ Pantomime can be a bit loud and scary, not to mention far too long, for tiny tots. When Salisbury Playhouse artistic director Gareth Machin first unwrapped this 55-minute Christmas present for pre-schoolers in the […]
The Wizard of Oz – Birmingham Repertory Theatre
The Wizard of Oz continues at Birmingham Repertory Theatre until 13 January 2019. Star rating: four stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ✩ Any production of The Wizard of Oz is always going to stand in the shadow of the classic MGM film. Under the direction of Liam Steel, this new staging at the Birmingham Rep, while retaining the elements of […]
A Christmas Carol The Musical – Lyceum Theatre
A Christmas Carol The Musical at the Lyceum Theatre, London. There are also performances at 4pm and 7.30pm on 17 December 2018. Star rating: four stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ✩ An uplifting and enjoyable evening, this event was supporting ground-breaking global research into life-limiting blood conditions at King’s College London and its hospital partners. Made all the […]
Anything Goes – Arena Stage, Washington DC
Anything Goes continues at the Arena Stage, Washington DC until 23 December 2018. Star rating: four stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ✩ Times have changed! Molly Smith, artistic director of the Arena Stage, reinvents, re-evaluates and re-creates another Golden Age musical following the process she applied to South Pacific, Carousel, Camelot, and last year The Pajama Game. Cross-cultural casting is not new to the Mead Center of American Theater, starting with Oklahoma!, when a […]
Just So – The Musical – Barn Theatre, Cirencester
Just So – The Musical continues at the Barn Theatre, Cirencester until 13 January 2019. Star rating: four stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ✩ It is 33 years now since composer George Stiles and lyricist Anthony Drewe, then students at Exeter University, won the first-ever Vivian Ellis Prize with the musical Just So, currently settling in as the […]
The Hello Girls – 59E59 Theaters, New York
The Hello Girls continues at 59E59 Theaters, New York until 22 December 2018. Star rating: five stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ Ever hear of The Hello Girls? Unless you’re a First World War history buff, probably not. But if there’s any justice in the musical theatre universe, you’ll be hearing quite a bit about […]
A Christmas Story The Musical – Waterloo East Theatre
A Christmas Story The Musical continues at the Waterloo East Theatre, London until 22 December 2018. Star rating: four stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ✩ A Christmas Story is an ageing but well-loved family film. In the 35 years since the original film’s release, it has been shown on television countless times. This musical rendition, with score and […]
Marisha Wallace and David Hunter join the West End cast of Waitress
Further principal casting has been announced for the eagerly-anticipated UK premiere of hit Broadway show Waitress at London’s Adelphi Theatre early next year. Joining the previously announced Katharine McPhee, who will make her West End debut in the title role, will be fellow American, Marisha Wallace, who made her own West End debut last year […]
The Producers – Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester
The Producers continues at the Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester until 26 January 2019. Star rating: four stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ✩ Mel Brooks’ 2001 musical adaptation of his own 1960s stage play The Producers stands up remarkably well to modern scrutiny in this highly polished revival directed by Raz Shaw. The stereotypes from which it draws much of its humour […]
Hot Gay Time Machine – Trafalgar Studios
Hot Gay Time Machine continues at Trafalgar Studios 2, London – until 5 January 2019. Star rating: four stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ✩ From the moment the doors open over at Trafalgar Studios 2, the audience is hit by a flurry of hot pink as the larger-than-life personalities of Zak Ghazi-Torbati and Toby Marlow greet the crowd. If […]
Marie: A Life of Marie Lloyd – York Theatre Royal
Marie – A Life of Marie Lloyd was performed at York Theatre Royal. Star rating: four stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ✩ I am not at all sure that my parents, whose birthdays stretched back almost into the Victorian era, would have approved of Marie Lloyd. They would have liked the songs but, respectable working class folk that […]
Guildford School of Acting – Betty Blue Eyes
Betty Blue Eyes is performed by students from the Guildford School of Acting at the Ivy Theatre, Guildford. Star rating: three stars ★ ★ ★ ✩ ✩ Not everyone knows but Kylie Minogue once played a pig, not any old pig but Betty Blue Eyes, the adorable porcine heroine of the George Stiles and Anthony Drewe […]
The Band – Theatre Royal Haymarket
The Band continues at the Theatre Royal Haymarket, London, until 12 January 2019, then tours. Star rating: five stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ The Band does the very unexpected. At face value, it is suspected that this musical’s sole focus is everything Take That, yet the heartwarming story of five girls and the importance of […]
Fiddler On the Roof – Menier Chocolate Factory
Fiddler On the Roof continues at the Menier Chocolate Factory until 9 March 2019. Star rating: five stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ Rehearsals for Trevor Nunn’s intimate but full-blooded revival of Fiddler On the Roof must have only just begun days after it was announced that anti-semitic attacks in the UK were numbering more than […]
Striking 12 – Union Theatre
Striking 12 continues at the Union Theatre, London until 23 December 2018. Star rating: three stars ★ ★ ★ ✩ ✩ On the face of it, Hans Christian Andersen’s short story The Little Match Girl is far from the ideal basis for an uplifting Christmas musical (spoiler: an abused girl tries to keep herself warm by burning the matches […]
Magic Mike Live – London Hippodrome
Magic Mike Live continues at the London Hippodrome until 27 October 2019. Star rating: four stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ✩ At long last Magic Mike Live has arrived in London and is delighting the predominately female audiences flocking to the revamped Theatre at The Hippodrome. The dilemma is how to write a serious review about a group […]
David Thaxton to be the new West End Phantom of the Opera
Olivier Award winner David Thaxton will step into the title role in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s The Phantom of the Opera at Her Majesty’s Theatre for a limited run from Monday 10 December 2018. Fresh from playing Javert in Les Misérables at the Queens Theatre, the star who previously played Raoul in Phantom sequel Love Never Dies […]
Elliot Harper is the new Miss Trunchbull taking charge on tour in 2019
The Exorcist’s Elliot Harper will step into the role of Miss Trunchbull in the UK and Ireland tour of the Royal Shakespeare Company’s Matilda The Musical when the multi-award-winning show opens at Plymouth’s Theatre Royal on 15 January 2019. Harper (Les Misérables, Queens Theatre, One Man Two Guvnors, National Theatre) will take over from Craige […]
Caroline Flack confirmed as Chicago’s new Roxie in the West End
Television personality Caroline Flack will be the new Roxie Hart in the hit revival of Chicago at London’s Phoenix Theatre from 10 December 2018. Love Island presenter Flack, the latest TV regular to take the trip to the West End stage via Strictly Come Dancing, will take over from the production’s original Roxie Hart, Sarah […]
Hugh Jackman to play four UK concert dates in 2019
Hugh Jackman will bring a touch of Hollywood glamour to the UK concert circuit in May next year when he plays four dates as part of his eagerly-anticipated debut world tour. Featuring a 26-piece live orchestra and 30 singers and dancers, The Man. The Music. The Show world tour will feature the superstar screen and […]
New Joseph for London Palladium summer season
Leading theatre producer Michael Harrison has been enlisted by Andrew Lloyd Webber to oversee a major new production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat which will open at the London Palladium next summer. The managing director of Qdos Entertainment, the company behind the popular Palladium Pantomime, Harrison’s numerous hit productions include The Bodyguard at […]
Bonnie Langford joins the West End cast of 9 to 5 The Musical
Bonnie Langford will return to the role of Roz Keith when the new version of Dolly Parton’s 9 to 5 The Musical launches at London’s Savoy Theatre for a strictly limited season in early 2019. Currently featuring in 42nd Street, Langford (Cats, EastEnders) who previously played the office assistant with an eavesdropping habit during the […]
A Christmas Carol – Chickenshed Theatre
A Christmas Carol continues at Chickenshed Theatre, London until 5 January 2019. Star rating: four stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ✩ Move over Cecil B DeMille. This 1930s take on A Christmas Carol has a cast of 800. Chickenshed does nothing by halves. The company’s diverse, inclusive USP is ensemble, ensemble, ensemble with some talented adults (mostly former Chickenshed […]
Girl in a Crisis – Live At Zédel
Girl in a Crisis at Live At Zédel, London. Star rating: three stars ★ ★ ★ ✩ ✩ Putting your talent right upfront in an intimate venue like the lush Crazy Coqs and before an almost pin-dropping quietly attentive audience is anything but easy. Plenty of credit then goes to Lorna Want whose manic, emotional and […]
City Academy Studio Company – Assassins
Assassins, performed by members of the City Academy Studio Company, continues at the Landor Space, London until 2 December 2018. Star rating: four stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ✩ Stephen Sondheim is always tricky, never more so than in Assassins, one of his later works and a history lesson as well as his most daring musical, […]
Plaid Tidings – Bridge House Theatre
Plaid Tidings continues at the Bridge House Theatre, London until 23 December 2018. Star rating: five stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ Tucked away on the edge of Crystal Palace Park is this jewel of a show. Conceived by writer Stuart Ross in the aftermath of 9/11 as a sequel to Forever Plaid, it provides a […]
Billionaire Boy The Musical – NST City, Southampton and Touring
Billionaire Boy The Musical continues at NST City, Southampton until 6 January 2019 and then on tour. Star rating: five stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ David Walliams’ children’s stories are familiar to many of us. Recently dominating the BBC’s family Christmas programming with highly popular screen adaptations, Walliams’ third book for children, Billionaire Boy, has […]
