Category Archives: Theatre

Sing Me a Song of Social Significance. Harold Rome’s agit-prop revue was initially performed at weekends in New York in 1937 by the Cultural and Recreational Division of the International Ladies Garment Union. The production was so successful that the … Continue reading →

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein was written when she was barely nineteen, the result of an horrific waking dream she had whilst she was on holiday in Switzerland with Shelley and Byron. The novel was an instant best seller in 1816, a … Continue reading →

As always you come out of the theatre wanting to read Stephen Sondheim’s lyrics, which are notable for their sophisticated dexterity and ironic wit. When Company was premiered in London in 1972 it was staged at Her Majesty’s Theatre and … Continue reading →

There was an enchanting American film documentary in 2002 about eight genuine youngsters competing in the 1999 National Spelling Bee, called Spellbound, and it was infinitely preferable to this relentless and exhausting musical send-up in which the children are played … Continue reading →

Time, as somebody says, wounds all heels. Shoes is a musical dance show by Richard Thomas and Stephen Mear aimed at a very young market. Thomas is best known for the notorious Jerry Springer, The Opera; Mear’s witty choreography has … Continue reading →

The reputations of two teachers are ruined and the boarding school they have founded is destroyed when one of their pupils falsely accuses them of being lovers. The girl’s grandmother alerts the other parents who withdraw their children. The teachers … Continue reading →

Bruce Norris’s award-winning American comedy has got its well-deserved transfer from the Royal Court to the West End. I enjoyed it even more the second time round. Clybourne Park, a fictional suburb of Chicago, is an all-black community. A white … Continue reading →

The Alan Ayckbourn/Andrew Lloyd Webber musical had a disastrous first night back in 1975 and barely ran five weeks. Now considerably revised, and wisely reduced in scale to fit into a tiny fringe theatre, it relies entirely on the silliness … Continue reading →