NOTE: These are older reviews - the cast has changed many times!It has been nearly 6 years since I last saw "The Woman In Black", so I thought it was about time I went to see it again to ascertain whether it is still as fresh as when I last saw it. The answer is a resounding yes!This thriller, adapted by Stephen Mallatratt from the novel by Susan Hill, has been running at the Fortune Theatre since February 1989 and one can see why as it is a thrilling ghost story that has you jumping out of your...
London Theatre Reviews
Read the latest London theatre reviews on the newest openings across the West End and beyond. Discover more about the latest must-see West End shows, Off-West End productions, and why you need to see shows in London. Scroll through our full theatre reviews listings of London musicals, plays, and live events from our London Theatre critics.
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The Glee Club has arrived in the West End after an extended sell-out run at the Bush Theatre. Set in the summer of 1962 the story concerns the lives of five miners and a Church Organist that sing variety hall music songs in working men clubs. We meet the six men as they prepare for their annual appearance at the local Gala.Phil the Church Organist is trying to cope with being a homosexual in a small Yorkshire mining village at a time when there was little acceptance or toleration of sexual...
The musical is based on Victor Hugo's classic novel in which a hunchback called Quasimodo, who dwells in the bell tower of Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris, falls in love with a gypsy girl named Esmeralda. However, she is also lusted after by the priest 'Frollo' who manipulates events to gain her love. To complicate matters Esmeralda is in love with 'Phoebus', who is engaged to Fleur-de-Lys.Unfortunately, this is an awful production, which is such a shame because the music is superb!! The show is a...
Who's Afraid of Virgina Woolf? is about a frustrated, explosive woman called Martha, who taunts her quiet, stewing husband, George, about his failures in life. However, when Nick & Honey, a young married couple, come to visit for a drink late in the evening, they get entwined in Martha and George's hurtful games that they play.Edward Albee proves you don't have to have a lot of action in a play to make it effective. You only need great writing, and Albee without doubt wrote a gem with this...
Agatha Christie's 'The Mousetrap', opened in the West End on the 25th November 1952, which means it has been running for over 50 years making it the world's longest running play - an incredible achievement for any play and one that the producers are rightly proud of. In the course of the first 50 years, according to the programme notes, over 10 million people have seen the show and over 395 tons of ice cream have been sold!So what is the show's success? Part of it has to do with the fame of...
Hampstead Theatre is fast becoming the go-to London address for new American plays originated amongst the vibrant Broadway and off-Broadway producing companies to receive their U.K premieres at. Two years ago they scored a hit (and a subsequent West End transfer) with David Lindsay-Abaire's Good People, a penetrating portrait about being reminded of your roots and past when you've seemingly left them behind, and now the theatre has produced Lindsay-Abaire's earlier play Rabbit Hole, which...
Round The Horne was a popular BBC radio comedy sketch show which regularly pulled in huge weekly audiences of 15 million listeners. It ran for four series from 1965 until 1968 and consisted of a regular line-up of performers, including Carry On star Kenneth Williams. The show has now been brought back to life by Producer/Director Tim Astley, Artistic Director of the Apollo Theatre Company, recreating some of its best sketches by using material from the original radio broadcasts. For some, this...
It's been fifteen years almost to the week that I first saw Disney's The Lion King in what was its first year in the West End. I don't think even Disney could have predicted that sixteen years later the show would still be London's most popular musical, selling out performances eight times a week and playing to packed crowds.Judging the show against the current climate of the West End, I worried some of the magic may have faded, but Julie Taymor's staging and costume design remains some of the...
The Donmar musical - like those at the Menier Chocolate Factory — used to be a regular fixture, both under Sam Mendes and then Michael Grandage. Now Josie Rourke at last seizes the initiative and makes her own musical theatre directing debut at the theatre she now runs, and scores a bulls-eye winner with her first foray into the genre.It helps that she's chosen a winner to begin with: to be precise, a Tony and Laurence Olivier Award winner for Best Musical for its original Broadway and West End...
Never saw the 1954 film: Bing Crosby was a bit passé even for my generation. But the song is inescapable, and in certain moods, dammit, can still stir the heart. The musical been done for a UK tour but astonishingly this is its first big West End outing.And a few times, especially in the first half, I could see why. Not to put too fine a point on it, its gentle aw-shucks goodwill and its ambling, I-feel-a-song-coming-on structure at times makes Top Hat o look as cutting-edge as Cabaret. But...
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