Lady Chatterley’s Lover is available on stream.theatre from 15 October until 21 November 2021. Star rating: two stars ★ ★ ✩ ✩ ✩ DH Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover is one of those novels that everybody has heard of, but far fewer have read. Its biggest claim to fame is that it was the centre of […]
Tag Archives | Phil Willmott
Stream.Theatre debut for new Lady Chatterley’s Lover musical
The world premiere production of Lady Chatterley’s Lover will be digitally revived on Stream.Theatre this autumn. Following on from the musical’s debut performances at London’s Shaftesbury Theatre in June, the filmed production will be available on demand from 15 October until 21 November 2021. Composer John Robinson’s (Closer to the Sun) re-invention of D.H. Lawrence’s […]
Cast for Lady Chatterley musical
2020 graduate Georgia Lennon will star opposite West End actor Michael Pickering in the world premiere of Lady Chatterley’s Lover at London’s Shaftesbury Theatre next month. Lennon will take on the role of Lady Chatterley with Pickering (Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, London Palladium, Kiss Me, Kate, Royal Albert Hall) bringing gamekeeper Mellors to […]
Lady Chatterley’s Lover musical to debut in London in June
A new musical version of Lady Chatterley’s Lover will receive its world premiere at London’s Shaftesbury Theatre next month. Composer John Robinson’s re-invention of D.H. Lawrence’s most notorious novel will be filmed to stream later in the year with live performances to follow. Directed by Sasha Regan, with original libretto by Phil Willmott and production […]
Blitz! – Union Theatre
Blitz! continues at the Union Theatre, London until 7 March 2020. Star rating: four stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ✩ For the second leg of their VE Day 75th anniversary trilogy, the Union has dusted down Lionel Bart’s Blitz! which ran alongside the same composer’s iconic Oliver! in the West End in 1962 and given […]
Jessica Martin to star in BLITZ! at the Union Theatre
Stage and screen star Jessica Martin will head the cast of Lionel Bart’s BLITZ! at London’s Union Theatre from 5 February until 7 March 2020. The actress whose 30-year career includes starring roles in hit productions of Me and My Girl and Spamalot, will play Mrs Blitztein, a Petticoat Lane market trader and the formidable […]
Tom Brown’s Schooldays – Union Theatre
Tom Brown’s Schooldays continues at the Union Theatre, London until 2 February, 2020 Star rating: five stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ As a naive teenager in the 1950s, Tom Hughes’ almost autobiographical tale about his public school days at Rugby, of privilege, bullying and the terrifying ordeals new boys had to endure before being accepted, […]
Musical version of Around the World in 80 Days to play the Union Theatre
Phileas Fogg and Passepartout will fly high at London’s Union Theatre next month in a revival of Phil Willmott and Annemarie Lewis Thomas’ well-received musical version of Around the World in 80 Days. Produced by the Union’s artistic director Sasha Regan and directed by Brendan Matthew, the new production will run from 8 August until […]
Carmen 1808 – Union Theatre
Carmen 1808 continues at the Union Theatre, London until 10 March. Star rating: four stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ✩ Given the phenomenal popularity of Bizet’s Carmen in so many different mediums, it’s saluatory to recall that it was a flop when it was first produced in 1875 at the Opera Comique in Paris. Denounced as […]
Full cast for Union Theatre’s reworked Carmen
Casting has been announced for the Union Theatre’s re-imagined version of Bizet’s Carmen which is due to play the London venue from 7 February until 10 March. Adapted and directed by Phil Willmott, the musical theatre-styled version of the much-loved opera will feature Rachel Lea-Gray in the title role. The cast also includes: Maximilian Marston; […]
Anyone Can Whistle – Union Theatre
Anyone Can Whistle continues at the Union Theatre, London until 11 March. Star rating: four stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ☆ Like the asylum inmates that populate the show, Anyone Can Whistle – Stephen Sondheim and Arthur Laurents’ experimental musical of 1964 – gets let out for a brief spell of fresh air. And just as […]
Crime and Punishment – A Rock Musical – The Scoop
Crime and Punishment – A Rock Musical at The Scoop, as part of London’s Free Open Air Season, continues until 25 September. Star rating: one star ★ ✩ ✩ ✩ ✩ St Petersburg in Tzarist Russia is the setting for Dostoyevsky’s famous story of moral (maybe) murder followed by remorse and redemption. In this instance we get […]
Toyah Wilcox Crime and Punishment rock musical has open-air debut
A rock re-working of Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment with songs by pop star Toyah Wilcox will debut at this year’s Free Open-Air Theatre Season in the heart of the capital. Presented by the award-winning Gods and Monsters, the new rock musical will play Southwark’s The Scoop as part of the London Bridge City Summer Festival […]
Exposure the Musical world premiere – casting revealed
Former soap stars Natalie Anderson and Michael Greco are among the cast for Exposure the Musical – Life Through a Lens which will receive its world premiere at London’s St James Theatre in July. Ex-Emmerdale regular Anderson and one-time EastEnder Greco will join David Albury, Andy Barke, Rhiannon Duncan, Zeph Gould, Kurt Kansley, Stevie Mahoney, Niamh […]
Princess Caraboo – Finborough Theatre, London
Princess Caraboo continues at the Finborough Theatre, London until 22 April. Star rating: five stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ Two hundred years ago, a woman who appeared to speak no English appeared in Devonshire. Initially believed to be a vagrant, a Portuguese sailor helped convince the locals that she was Caraboo, a princess from […]
Exposure The Musical – Life Through A Lens has world premiere at St James Theatre
The world premiere of Exposure The Musical – Life Through A Lens will run at the St James Theatre, for a limited season, from 16 July until 27 August 2016, with press night on 28 July. The book for this new musical is by Mike Dyer, with Quentin Russell as script consultant and dramaturgy by Phil Willmott, who is also directing. Dyer has also written the lyrics and music with […]
New musical Princess Caraboo has world premiere at Finborough Theatre
Major new British musical Princess Caraboo will receive its world premiere at London’s Finborough Theatre on 30 March. Originally seen as a staged reading as part of Vibrant – A Festival of Finborough Playwrights in 2010, and commissioned and developed by the Bristol Old Vic, the musical recounts the strange true story of a beautiful […]
Road Show – Union Theatre
Road Show continues at the Union Theatre, London until 5 March. Star rating: four stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ✩ The adage that musical aren’t written but rewritten could’ve been conceived to describe Road Show – Stephen Sondheim and John Weidman’s portrait of two real-life brothers wrestling with the American Dream at the turn of the 20th century. […]
Road Show at the Union Theatre – meet the cast
Thanks to Musical Theatre Review’s official photographer Roy Tan, below you can meet the cast of the UK revival of Stephen Sondheim and John Weidman’s Road Show, presented by the Union Theatre and Phil Willmott Company and opening this week. At the turn of the last century old Pa Meisner sends his sons, the charming and ruthless Wilson and […]
Road Show at the Union Theatre – new behind the scenes images
Previews have begun for the UK revival of Stephen Sondheim and John Weidman’s Road Show, presented by the Union Theatre and Phil Willmott Company (press nights are Wednesday 10 February and Thursday 11 February). At the turn of the last century old Pa Meisner sends his sons, the charming and ruthless Wilson and the thoughtful, unambitious Addison […]
Sondheim’s Road Show revived at the Union Theatre
The Union Theatre and the Phil Willmott Company are presenting the first UK revival of Stephen Sondheim and John Weidman’s Road Show from 3 February to 5 March 2016 (press nights are Wednesday 10 February and Thursday 11 February). At the turn of the last century old Pa Meisner sends his sons, the charming and ruthless Wilson and the thoughtful, unambitious Addison off to […]
Princess Ida – Finborough Theatre
Princess Ida continues at the Finborough Theatre, London until 18 April. Star rating: 4 stars ★ ★ ★ ★ This is only the fourth time I’ve seen Princess Ida in a lifetime of Gilbert and Sullivan-going which has included many dozens of productions of The Mikado, HMS Pinafore and so on. And it’s more than 20 years since the last professional London production. A […]
Secret Love – Connaught Theatre, Worthing and Touring
Secret Love – The Life and Music of Doris Day was reviewed at the Connaught Theatre, Worthing and continues touring until 2 April. Star rating: 3 stars **** Billed as a heartbreaking new musical play, written and directed by Phil Willmott, Secret Love is more a concert with narrative and acted interludes telling of Doris Day’s career and the […]
Finian’s Rainbow – Charing Cross Theatre
Finian’s Rainbow continues at the Charing Cross Theatre, London until 10 May. Originally subtitled ‘A Musical (Satire) in Two Acts’, Finian’s Rainbow may well have raised a few eyebrows at its Broadway premiere in January 1947, dealing as it does with racial intolerance and political injustice. EY Harburg and Burton Lane’s gentle but pointed invective certainly […]
Finian’s Rainbow opens at the Union Theatre
Finian’s Rainbow, the musical by composer Burton Lane and lyricist EY Harburg (book by Harburg and Fred Saidy, adapted by Charlotte Moore) has been unperformed professionally in the UK since its first West End run. Now there is a chance to rediscover the show in a brand new production staged by award-winning director Phil Willmott […]
Lost Boy – Charing Cross Theatre
Lost Boy continues at the Charing Cross Theatre, London until 15 February. The story of Peter Pan, the boy who refuses to grow up, continues to be re-interpreted by a number of theatre writers and directors. In the past, productions such as Finding Neverland, Peter and the Starcatcher and Peter and Alice have adapted the […]
New musical Lost Boy has season at two theatres
As part of the Finborough Theatre’s Celebrating British Music Theatre and The Great War 100 series, a new British musical from Phil Willmott – Lost Boy – receives its world premiere, playing a season at two London theatres. The piece opens at the Finborough, where it will now play for two weeks, premiering on 31 December 2013 (press […]
