A Small Mind At The Theatre

The 2011 British comedy film The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel was a surprise success at the box office, maybe thanks to having a star cast including the likes of Judi Dench and Bill Nighy. Such was the success, that it spawned a sequel in 2015, and then even a rather curious TV series about The Real Marigold Hotel . So, with all that success, maybe it is no surprise that reaching Milton Keynes Theatre this week as part of a UK tour is a stage version of the story. So, is this a further success in the series, or spreading the same old story too thinly? The simple answer is that  The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel as a stage show, in this incarnation, does seem very thin. This is a safe, tremendously simple British comedy, which for the first act at least presents very little drama or story-telling, and just a sort of getting-to-know-the-assembled old folks, who, as the story states, have come to the hotel, to retire, and escape life, or find new love. None of that simplicity is to t...

Matthew Bourne over the years has become perhaps the most recognisable name in ballet in the UK and despite ballet feeling at times for the elite, Bourne has managed to make ballet more for the masses than any other director out there. His innovation in storytelling and attention to detail brings his work a great style and flair to proceedings. This time around, this tour is revisiting an earlier work from 2012, Sleeping Beauty , and fresh from opening at Plymouth and then an eight-week run at Sadler's Wells, the tour for 2023 begins at Milton Keynes Theatre. So, the question is, is it something worth staying awake for? Well, Sleeping Beauty is, put simply, a delight in nearly every respect. As is characteristic of Bourne's work, this is effortlessly accessible ballet and to some extent, contemporary dance. Where some pieces can get confusing in the storytelling, especially if it is a less familiar story, Bourne has a way of making you know exactly what is going on. Most peopl...

The global star that is Cherilyn Sarkisian, more commonly known to us as Cher, has been around in the public eye for so long now that there is very nearly no generation alive that hasn't been touched by one iteration of her. Therefore it is perhaps apt that  The Cher Show , which premiered in Chicago in 2018, tells the life of Cher through three performers, who are so different in many ways, despite in essence the same person. Those "characters", in order, are Babe, the young, on the edge of stardom version, and the “babe” to Sonny Bono in their first global hit, I've Got You Babe . Then for the seventies period, Babe becomes Lady, the more hungry for fame and strong Cher, and the one fighting her corner as Sonny drives her to react badly to their partnership and relationship. Finally, the eighties bring us Star, the final incarnation, the film star, the star of adverts, the singer of Believe and Cher ready with a tweet or two on Twitter. It is an excellent format and...