TS Eliot was three months too late. The cruellest month is not April, but January – when the post-Christmas comedown collides with hard-to-maintain resolutions, topped off by grotty weather. Such is the premise of this nascent new cabaret show, with a variety of comedy songs by Patrick Stockbridge set in the first month of every year.
Category: Musicals
Promises Promises, Southwark Playhouse, London ★★
Is Promises, Promises really only three hours long? It feels longer, and not in a good way. Based on Billy Wilder’s film The Apartment, this musical has some serious creative welly behind it, with a book by Neil Simon and songs by Burt Bacharach and Hal David. But to be blinded by such prestige would be to ignore a skewed sense of 1960s sexual politics that struggles to be counterbalanced by much warmth and heart, and takes an age to tell its story.
Broadway star Audra McDonald returns to London
Audra McDonald is to return to London’s West End in April for four concerts at Leicester Square Theatre, where she completely sold out her shows last year.The Broadway legend, who has won a record 6 Tony Awards, will be joined on stage this time by host & pianist Seth Rudetsky, who last month starred in…
A Christmas Carol, Lost Theatre ★★★
Alan Menken and Lynn Ahrens’s adaptation gets the amateur treatment
Soho Cinders, Union Theatre, London ★★★★
It’s safe to call 2016 as the year of Stiles and Drewe, isn’t it? With Half a Sixpence transferring into the West End from Chichester Festival Theatre (where their Travels With My Aunt also debuted), Wind in the Willows touring the UK and rumours that their adaptation of Soapdish may finally be finding its away to…
Licensed to Ill, Southwark Playhouse ★★★★
This potted history of The Beastie Boys captures the spirit and essence of a time in music history
Peter Pan, National Theatre ★★★★★
A movingly hilarious production that combines the magical nature of Never Land and the transformative power of storytelling with the melancholia inherent in Barrie’s writing
Jest End, Waterloo East Theatre, London ★★★
It’s no Forbidden Broadway, but this series of comedy skits has its moments
School of Rock, New London Theatre, London ★★★★
Some of this musical’s best moments are lifted verbatim from the source film, but this is Lloyd Webber’s most fun work in a long while
The Mirror Never Lies, Cockpit Theatre, London ★★
Barbara Pym’s novel is rendered inert by this adaptation into a musical
The House of Usher, Hope Theatre, London ★★★
Poe’s short story in musical form
A Pacifist’s Guide to the War on Cancer, National Theatre ★★★★
As a musical alone, it’s missing something: but when that fourth wall comes down…
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