Sutton Foster's West End debut is the top ★★★★★ Cole Porter's Anything Goes at The Barbican is the best musical performance I’ve seen in a long time, maybe ever. And it's thanks to one person- Sutton Foster. This is Sutton Foster’s first London appearance. I guess Broadway audiences know all ...
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Laughter and tears looking at the role of choice and chance in love ★★★★★ Constellations by Nick Payne at the Vaudeville Theatre is about the ups and downs of a relationship but it’s also about the choices the couple make, depending on the circumstances they are in at any given ...
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Michael Ball floods Hairspray with sunshine ★★★★★ The musical Hairspray opened on Broadway in 2002 and hasn’t changed much since. The current production at the London Coliseum, normally home to English National Opera, and the forthcoming UK tour replicate the original, as directed by Jack O’Brien and choreographed by Jerry ...
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Magical production of Wicked composer's first musical ★★★★ It’ll be 50 years old next year but somehow I’ve never managed to see Pippin. I’m glad my first introduction to Stephen Schwartz’s earliest musical (with a book by Roger O. Hirson) was this production at the Charing Cross Theatre, first seen ...
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Polly Creed's clever play about an animal rights protest lifts you up then knocks you down ★★★★ Polly Creed's audio play Humane lifts you up with a story about a local community's animal rights protest before knocking you down with revelations about racism with the group. Humane, written by Polly ...
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I'm In Love With A Wonderful Production of Rodgers & Hammerstein's anti-racist musical ★★★★★ I don’t think it was simply my euphoria at being back in a theatre but this Chichester Festival Theatre production of Rodger and Hammerstein’s South Pacific filled me with joy. South Pacific was written in 1949 ...
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Daniel Mays and David Thewlis impress in Pinter play but the streaming didn't When I heard that Daniel Mays and David Thewlis were to play the two bickering hitmen in Harold Pinter’s classic short play The Dumb Waiter, without hesitation I booked to see it. It didn’t hurt that Jeremy ...
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Feel-good movie hits the heights. ★★★★★ In The Heights is the most feel-good, uplifting movie I have seen in a long time. It’s not a film of the stage show, it is a proper film in its own right, directed by Jon M Chu, who made Crazy Rich Asians. It’s ...
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Robert Lindsay comedy misses target ★★ The Three Musketeers adapted by Sydney Stevenson and starring Robert Lindsay was promoted as an audio play but, if purchase a ticket, you'll find it comes as a video with animated illustrations and glimpses of actors using Zoom. So there are three pillars to ...
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Stratford production lets Shakespeare speak for himself ★★★★ The COVID-cancelled Royal Shakespeare Company production of The Winter's Tale has returned as a play for TV, as part of BBC4's Lights Up season of 'lost' plays. It is set in, or at least starts in, the 1950s. We find ourselves in ...
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Josh O'Connor & Jessie Buckley shine in fast-moving Shakespeare film ★★★ The National Theatre's Romeo & Juliet is another of the hybrids of theatre and film that have emerged during lockdown. In this case, William Shakespeare's play, directed by Simon Godwin,  is a film but filmed in the Lyttleton Theatre ...
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Pam Ferris & Toby Jones perfect in audio play about a mother with dementia ★★★★★ I’ve listened to audio plays all my life, mainly on BBC radio, so, believe me, it means a lot when I say I have never heard a better audio play than Mark Ravenhill’s Angela. It ...
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Top 10 People Of Colour in Musicals The Andrew Lloyd Webber Foundation recently criticised the lack of opportunity given to black and minority ethnic performers in drama schools. If we don’t have more diversity in our theatres, we miss our opportunity to see the best possible shows on stage. So, ...
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Joanna Lumley & Alfred Enoch add gloss to digital Oscar Wilde ★★★ Despite it being co-produced by five regional theatres with the involvement of many more, The Picture Of Dorian Gray is not theatre. It’s not filmed theatre. It’s not a theatrical film. It’s not a theatre-film hybrid. It’s a ...
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Chadwick Boseman gives towering performance in film of August Wilson's play ★★★★ Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom starring Chadwick Boseman and Viola Davis is a film of a play written by August Wilson in 1984.  Denzil Washington is one of the producers and he is known to be determined to bring ...
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Richard Blackwood exceptional in Typical ★★★★★ Typical offers us a day in the life of an ordinary man, a typical man, but the question is, is he a typical black man? He gets up and gets dressed. He’s looking forward to the weekend, when he’ll see his boys. He fancies ...
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Adrian Lester & Danny Sapani give an acting masterclass ★★★★★ Hymn, although it’s not spelled 'him', is a play about two men, two sons, and two brothers as it turns out. A bare stage with two actors provide possibly the best piece of streamed theatre I’ve seen. It begins with ...
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Subtle Performances in comedy about bereavement ★★★★ Lorien Haynes’ play Good Grief lasts less than an hour but in that time it follows two people on an emotional rollercoaster as they suppress and express their feelings through various stages of grief. The two, played by Sian Clifford (Claire in Fleabag) ...
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The Top Ten Bestselling Stage Musicals as featured on Box Office Radio This top ten doesn't go by the money the productions have taken at the box office or length of run or all the different productions added together. This list is based on the number of tickets sold worldwide ...
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The Best Stage Shows Online or on TV Let’s face it, for many of us, the only way we’re going to get to see some theatre in the foreseeable future is on a screen, either online or on TV. So here are the best theatre shows that you can watch ...
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