Bananaman: The Musical, Southwark Playhouse, London ★★½

Reviewed for The Reviews Hub: If you thought pantomime season was over for another year, think again. Southwark Playhouse’s latest musical Bananaman, based on the DC Thompson comic strip that now resides in the Beano after life in the now-defunct stablemates Nutty and the Dandy, is firmly in the over-the-top, child-friendly silly comedy vein. The…

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Waterside Theatre, Aylesbury ★★★½

Reviewed for The Reviews Hub: It is a recurring thread in many modern pantomimes that the titular heroines, from Sleeping Beauty to Cinderella, are among the least served in terms of scripted character. That’s certainly the case with Aylesbury’s version of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, where the characters of Muddles, Dolly the Nurse…

Privates on Parade, Union Theatre, London ★★★

Reviewed for Musical Theatre Review: Those of us who grew up in the 1970s will remember the BBC sitcom It Ain’t Half Hot Mum, written by Jimmy Perry and David Croft about a group of Second World War entertainers getting up to all sorts deep in India and Burma. Peter Nichols’ 1977 play Privates on…

Flashdance, Waterside Theatre, Aylesbury ★★

Reviewed for The Reviews Hub: In the pantheon of 1980s movies, Flashdance has achieved cult status far exceeding its own gaudy ambitions. The tale of a welding apprentice who supplements her meagre wages from a Pittsburgh steel firm by dancing in a local club, but who has ambitions to enrol at the local ballet school, mines every…