The Color Purple in Concert, Cadogan Hall, London ★★★★★

Reviewed for Musical Theatre Review: There are some musicals which grow in stature the more they get stripped back. The Color Purple is one such musical. The recent Broadway revival – a transfer of the Menier Chocolate Factory’s 2013 London production – shrugged off the original production’s cinematic look (designed to evoke memories of Steven…

Judy!, Arts Theatre, London ★★★★

Reviewed for Musical Theatre Review: Last year, Southwark Playhouse played host to Through the Mill, a loving warts-and-all tribute to the life of Judy Garland told through re-creations of her life at three crucial points. There are few Fringe productions for which a transfer to a larger, more central venue has seemed more appropriate. Writer/director…

Room, Theatre Royal Stratford East, London ★★★★

Reviewed for Musical Theatre Review: Emma Donoghue’s 2010 novel Room tells the harrowing story of a woman who is kept prisoner in a small room, told solely from the perspective of her five-year-old son Jack, fathered by their captor and to whom the wooden walls of their single room are the extent of the world….

tick, tick… BOOM!, Park Theatre, London ★★★★

Reviewed for Musical Theatre Review: That Jonathan Larson created the multi award-winning Broadway musical Rent would be enough to secure his place in musical theatre history. The tragedy of his death, on the last day of rehearsals for the show that would make his name, has elevated him to near-mythic proportions. tick, tick… BOOM! is…

When Harry Met Barry, Above The Stag, London ★★★

Reviewed for Musical Theatre Review: Paul Emelion Daly’s musical comedy romance first played at the Above the Stag Theatre in July 2011. In the intervening years, the venue has changed – from a room above a now-demolished gay pub in Victoria to an archway in Vauxhall. When Harry Met Barry has also undergone its own…

Maria Friedman: Lenny and Steve, The Crazy Coqs, London ★★★★★

Reviewed for The Reviews Hub: Maria Friedman has come to be regarded as one of Britain’s foremost interpreters of Stephen Sondheim – both as actor and, more recently, a director, with her revival of Merrily We Roll Along. Her directing career – continuing with Stepping Out at the Vaudeville Theatre and a forthcoming musical by…