Reviewed for Musical Theatre Review: Anybody looking for a West End musical involving singing and dancing schoolchildren has a third choice supplementing those of Matilda and School of Rock. But even with a script by Lee Hall, the book writer of Billy Elliot, any parents choosing to take the children to see Our Ladies of…
Author: Scott M
Formerly Online Editor and Digital Project Manager for The Stage, creator of the award-winning The Gay Vote politics blog, now a full-time software developer – but a part-time critic for Musical Theatre Review, The Reviews Hub and others.
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…
Jane Eyre, Waterside Theatre, Aylesbury ★★★★
Reviewed for The Reviews Hub: Originally staged in two parts at Bristol Old Vic, Sally Cookson’s collaborative adaptation of Jane Eyre won acclaim in a single, three-hour form at the National Theatre. It is due to return to London in September, following this current tour which has now arrived in Aylesbury. Jane Eyre is often presented as a…
The Whisper House, The Other Palace, London ★★
Reviewed for Musical Theatre Review: For its second major staging in its new rebranded guise as the home for new musical writing, The Other Palace has chosen curiously. Whisper House is a 2009 piece with music and lyrics by Duncan Sheik, whose Spring Awakening and, to a lesser extent, American Psycho marked him out as…
After You, The Crazy Coqs, London ★★★½
Reviewed for The Reviews Hub: Over recent months, Brasserie Zedél’s live cabaret space, The Crazy Coqs, has been spreading its wings with comedy performers and plays complementing the more traditional cabaret. Now, it has a commissioned musical, written for and set in the venue by Alex Parker and Katie Lam. Apart from raising one of…
Audra McDonald, Leicester Square Theatre, London ★★★★★
Reviewed for The Reviews Hub: If your knowledge of Audra McDonald is limited to her role as the opera singer-cum-wardrobe, Madame de Garderobe, in Disney’s recent live-action remake of Beauty and the Beast, you have so much more to learn. McDonald has won six Tony Awards – more than any other actor – and is…
How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, Wilton’s Music Hall, London ★★★
Reviewed for Musical Theatre Review: The self-help book may not seem like the likeliest of genres from which to birth a musical comedy. But Shepherd Mead’s 1952 book How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying is a sharply satirical work that mercilessly lampoons the office culture that Mad Men would, several decades later, afford a…
The Playwrights’ Suite: Full Tilt, Canal Café Theatre, London ★★★½
Reviewed for The Reviews Hub: Attending a staged reading of a work in progress is an experience unlike any other for an audience member. There is no set, no exits or entrances, no lighting or sound cues – although all of those such stage directions are read direct from the script. And so, in addition…
Interview: Sharon D Clarke on a dream role in The Life and colour-blind casting
Originally published on Musical Theatre Review: Revived at the Southwark Playhouse, The Life at is a revival of a Cy Coleman musical which has not been seen since its original Broadway production 20 years ago. Musical theatre star Sharon D Clarke, who was awarded an MBE in the New Year’s Honours list, plays Sonja, a…
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