An enjoyably theatrical show based on Noel Coward's iconic romance ★★★★ If you’re expecting to see a straightforward stage adaptation of the film Brief Encounter, you may be disappointed. If you’re expecting to see Emma Rice’s legendary multimedia production of Brief Encounter, you may be disappointed. If you go without ...
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Aleshea Harris' bloodbath thriller is a bit anemic ★★★ Is God Is by up-and-coming American playwright Aleshea Harris is a revenge tragedy, or perhaps tragicomedy, in a tradition that dates back to the Old Testament and takes in Jacobean tragedy and Quentin Tarantino along the way. Perhaps it most resembles ...
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A surprisingly funny play about loss and grief ★★★★ At the beginning of What If If Only, we meet a man referred to in the cast list as ‘someone’. He’s sitting at a table in a small room talking to himself or rather to someone who isn’t actually there. His ...
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Hilary Mantel and Ben Miles provide a fitting end to a great theatrical trilogy. ★★★★ It's a few years since the Royal Shakespeare Company's outstanding stage versions of the first two books in Hilary Mantel's trilogy about the rise and fall of Thomas Cromwell.  At last, we arrive at the ...
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Larry Kramer's  blistering attack on prejudice and complacency in the early days of AIDS epidemic ★★★★ The Normal Heart, written in 1985 as the AIDS epidemic was finally beginning to be acknowledged, is based on author Larry Kramer’s own experience of this period. It's a play that highlights prejudice and ...
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Star debut by Max Harwood in a joyous fantasy film musical ★★★★ Everybody should be talking about the film of Everybody’s Talking About Jamie but I suspect they won't because it slipped through the cinemas and is now behind the firewall of Amazon Prime. First thing to say, this is ...
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Martin McDonagh’s early work hints at greatness to come. ★★★ We’ve come to know Martin McDonagh very well over the last 25 years. Revivals of his plays The Cripple Of Inishmaan with Daniel Radcliffe and The Lieutenant of Inishmore with Aidan Turner were West End triumphs and confirmed his status ...
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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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