A Small Mind At The Theatre

While I have now managed to see quite a few stage productions and some films of the works of the pairing of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II, The King and I , their 1951 musical (their fifth together) has passed me by. So, fresh to story, and mostly fresh to the tunes, did this captivate the way this classic show should? Anna Leonowens travels with her young son Louis to Siam to teach English to the many, very many, children and many wives of the King. While there she hopes to influence the King and get him to bring his country up to date and follow perhaps the more open world of the Europeans. A quick glance at the programme of The King and I signals that this performance is going to be in quality hands, with both Annalene Beechey and Darren Lee as Anna and the King sporting remarkable biographies. It shows as they are quite amazing throughout the show. They form an amazing partnership together with their both very strong in character personalities sparking off one ano...

Curtains comes with much to live up to, created by the legendary pairing of John Kander and Fred Ebb, no less than Cabaret and Chicago among their work, this was their final show working together before the death of Ebb in 2004. It also forms what on paper looks a brilliant concept, a "musical whodunnit". So, does it fill with intrigue and thrills, or does it end up being more of a whocares? When Jessica Cranshaw, star of Robbin’ Hood!, a musical set for Broadway, is murdered onstage, detective and not shy of the stage himself, Frank Cioffi, arrives to solve the case. Can he solve it though without getting distracted by the cast and the thrill of the greasepaint? First and foremost with Curtains is that it looks fabulous. The set from David Woodhead evokes the look of the theatre perfectly, simple and effective. Added to this costumes from Gabriella Slade look sublime as well, making it a visual delight, all creating the era extremely well. Elsewhere perhaps the ...

In my theatrical exploits, I have rarely ventured into the world of the theatre of standup comedy, often due to a mixture of terror at being targetted in the audience, partly due to the concern that I will have an evening of not getting the comedy, and also the fact that wise people keep telling me, you can't see anything. Therefore my comedy to date has been a mixture of the occasional, I saw them on the TV and liked their stuff variety, or that I am stalking Sara Pascoe once again. However, on the night of 20th February 2020, I found myself in the Charles Bradlaugh pub (more familiar to me as my Monday night quiz haunt) and attempting to convince those I was with to sit as far away from the stage as we could. As it happened we ended up in a neutral zone of not at the back but also not at the front, in the nether region where the lighting doesn't quite show the horror upon your face as you are caught in the glowing lights of the mischievous comic out for audiences blood....

The creators and cast of Once sure know how to get an audience onside as a fifteen-minute pre-show good old knees up was more than enough to get the crowd clapping. It's a noble effort of extra material on what is in itself quite a long show already, but is it worth the effort, or does all this pre-show jollity mask an insubstantial show? Once is based upon the 2007 film of the same name written by John Carney, and it has to be said it is slight little tale and benefits greatly from the magnificent songs by Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová. Tale goes as such, Guy (Daniel Healy) discards his guitar and plans to do who knows what, Girl (Emma Lucia) stops him, gets him to fix her "hoofer" and rekindle a romance of old that inspired all his music. However, do the guy and girl fall for one another instead? Despite its simple, well-told tale of boy meets girl, Once , even at over two hours is a riveting show, full of invention, big characters and the aforementioned song...

Alistair Beaton's theatre adaptation of Hans Fallada's original book surprises from it's very beginning with the appearance of Jessica Walker as the narrating statue, Golden Elsie, and then for its complete duration makes you challenge everything that you and they in war-torn Berlin lived by. Thinking theatre is often the best, and Alone in Berlin, the latest offering from Made in Northampton (with York Theatre Royal and association with Oxford Playhouse) makes you think more often than many an offering. The original novel is a sprawling and deep, nearly 600-page, piece, therefore, Beaton makes two main characters our eyes on the world. Otto and Anna Quangel have lost their son fighting in France, and they challenge their own beliefs and the beliefs of the nation with a fight back against what is ripping their country and the world apart. Set mostly within the Quangel's home, this play and Jonathan Fensom's brilliantly claustrophobic set exhibits everything ...

Being of about the right age when Gloria Estefan and the Miami Sound Machine first started to make it big, I was quite a fan. Even going so far as to have a few old vinyl singles and a couple of her albums on this new fangled CD system, in what was an admittedly limited music collection. In this collection was my favourite Estefan album, Cuts Both Ways, which included the track Get On Your Feet , which of course inspired the title of this relatively new musical of the life of the Estefan's. So, does it captivate this distant original fan, and or does it resemble a dad doing a bit of Latin dancing? On Your Feet! is a telling of the Estefan's battle for success beyond the Latin market and interspersed with snippets of what made them who they were with family flashbacks, and it's safe to say that it is an endless mix of success and failure. Where it works; vibrant colours from costume, backdrops, some superb choreography, and excellent music from the superb, occasiona...