Review: DOLLY PARTON'S SMOKY MOUNTAIN CHRISTMAS CAROL, Queen Elizabeth HallDecember 14, 2022How much does the world love Dolly Parton? Let us count the ways. She gave $1m to help fund the Moderna vaccine which has saved around two million lives, she started up in 2007 the Imagination Library which every month now donates more than 40,000 books across the UK and she wrote “Jolene” and “I Will Always Love You” on the same day.
Review: MANDELA, The Young VicDecember 11, 2022To paraphrase Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, when Mandela is good, it’s very, very good, and when it’s bad, it’s almost unwatchable.
Review: SLEEPING BEAUTY, Sadler's WellsDecember 8, 2022Sir Matthew Bourne’s Sleeping Beauty debuted in 2012 to mark the twenty-fifth anniversary of Bourne’s New Adventures company. Ten years on, the celebratory production is now in its own turn being celebrated.
Review: A CHRISTMAS GAIETY, Royal Albert HallDecember 6, 2022Drag queens are rarely charged with the crime of being understated so it is hardly surprising that San Fran’s Peaches Christ and her co-host Edwin Outwater chose to partner up with the Royal Albert Hall for the UK debut of their perennial Christmas show.
Review: MONOPOLY LIFESIZED, LondonDecember 5, 2022“Under capitalism, man exploits man. Under communism, it's just the opposite.” Attributed to Nobel Prize-winning economist and Ali G interviewee JK Galbraith, this is the phrase that rolls around my head as I venture into the Crystal Maze-like Monopoly Lifesized, a highly entertaining take on arguably art’s single greatest monument to the pursuit of personal wealth.
Review: ELF THE MUSICAL, Dominion TheatreNovember 25, 2022When Elf The Musical last set foot in London, the critics noted its family appeal, the syrupy content and the extortionate ticket prices. Has much changed this time around?
Review: THE SNOWMAN, Peacock TheatreNovember 22, 2022The Snowman and Christmas go together like bad weather and TfL apologies so it's unsurprising that this adaption by the Birmingham Repertory Theatre of Raymond Brigg's seminal 1978 graphic novel is returning to Sadler's Wells' Peacock Theatre.
Review: ANYTHING WITH A PULSE, Park TheatreNovember 17, 2022While ostensibly in the same bailiwick as Constellations and Lungs, Anything With A Pulse is far more of a white-knuckle ride into the heart of a modern source of darkness.
Review: LA CLIQUE, Leicester Square SpiegeltentNovember 16, 2022When it comes to London Christmas stage institutions, there’s an argument for saying that La Clique now deserves a place alongside Handel’s Messiah, A Christmas Carol, The Nutcracker and Mother Goose.
Review: A DEAD BODY IN TAOS, Wilton's Music HallNovember 3, 2022David Farr made his name in 2016 bringing John le Carré's book The Night Manager to vivid life in a hit TV adaptation. In his latest play A Dead Body In Taos, re-animation is again the name of the game.
Review: JORDAN GRAY: IS IT A BIRD?, London PalladiumOctober 29, 2022Jordan Gray is having one hell of a year. Five-star reviews at the Edinburgh Fringe have led to a run at Soho Theatre, a controversial slot on Channel 4’s Friday Night Live and the chance to work on an ITV show with Simon Pegg and Nick Frost.
Review: THE CHOIR OF MAN, Arts TheatreOctober 14, 2022If Irvine Welsh had been born in England and written Trainspotting while sat in an old school boozer high on molly, this show may very well have been the result.