A Small Mind At The Theatre

9 to 5 - The Musical is a 2008 show based on the original 1980 film starring Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin, and music legend Dolly Parton, who with this musical writes the music and lyrics expanding its content extremely successfully beyond the main song 9 to 5 itself. However, the question, is this worth your time in 2019? Simple answer, yes. This two-hour feast of colour, tunes and broad characters provides a ridiculously camp and surreal night of entertainment. The story such as it is (deliberately corny book by Patricia Resnick), revolves around three bold females dealing with the inequality in the workplace, while their lecherous boss seeks a crude conquest of one one of them "girls". It is a fascinating study in fact if you think deeply about how things have taken a long time to change, and not as one character refers, resolved in ten years. However, deep thinking isn't really the point of 9 To 5 , even if it attempts to have a message at its core. In the leads ...

When you finish watching the two hours of Buddy - The Buddy Holly Story , the briefness of it, and the fact that you have heard nearly everything that the great Buddy himself was able to give to the world enforces the sadness more. If it hasn't by the time of final spotlight, you will probably by then, have a tear in the eye, if any of Buddy Holly's music ever meant anything to you. Eighteen months is all that the world had of Buddy, and this show does make you feel how brief that period is. Buddy along with his The Crickets, went from nobodies at a backwater radio show in 1957 and onto total world recognition before his death in 1959. During that time a collection of perhaps unchallenged music showing this period of music was created. As Elvis was gyrating his hips, Buddy performed, in heaven forbid, his glasses. Thick rimmed ones at that. He wanted to be different, he challenged things, and yes, he would have created brilliant, innovative music for years, without any doubt....

For regular theatre-goers, we always expect a little checklist of things that might occur during a show, and August Wilson's Two Trains Running , in this new co-production version between Royal & Derngate and English Touring Theatre, in particular, does two of them. The first, to challenge the audience, and looking around during the show at the predominantly white audience being told for the best part of three hours how awful the white man has been in the past, they were rightly challenged. A second checklist item would be, to cause debate, and as I wandered around post-show, as people were enjoying their drinks, I dipped in and out of several debates that, with this weaving themed play, were not by some distance tied just to one theme. So, in this, Two Trains Running ticks two boxes conclusively, but what of the rest? Two Trains Running is set in Memphis Lee's Cafe, a place of refuge for the likes of the rebel-rousing, Black Power radical and sure of himself Sterli...

For those attending this remodelled version of The Entertainer who is familiar with the work of John Osborne, will probably notice the unfamiliar the most. Much of this play is set apart from the original, both timezone and main character are tweaked, this is the eighties now, and the tone of the comedy has drifted away from what would have been acceptable in the fifties. Indeed the whole feel of the piece seems wrong, so, could it possibly still work? Archie Rice is an on the slide comedy performer, "entertaining" the miserable hoards at the local theatre with his increasingly out of touch comedy. Times are a changing and Rice is not changing with them, unlike father and fellow, but retired, performer, Billy Rice, who saw the end coming, so sits at home shouting out racial slurs to his new neighbours instead. Into this comes Archie's daughter Jean, bringing emotion to the household, and Archie's wife Phoebe, who brings the sparks of friction. It's set for fun ...

Motown the Musical has had international success both sides of the Atlantic, much like the music it tells the story of. However, despite that success, this jukebox musical, which at times feels like it is on speed dial, due to the intensity of the music, is a mixture of quality, especially when it comes to that second act. Motown the Musical is as much about the music, as it's founder Berry Gordy, and that's no surprise as this 2013 musical is based on his autobiography, To Be Loved: The Music, the Magic, the Memories of Motown. And it is safe to say that despite the talent around him, busy bringing icons of music to the stage, this show is also mostly about Edward Baruwa who plays Berry Gordy. Baruwa gives an exceptional performance, maybe one of the strongest individual ones I have seen on the Milton Keynes stage to date. His depth of emotion in not only his acting but also the emotion he puts through his own renditions of Gordy's songs is exceptional, his v...

I first saw this rebooted version of the sixties musical back in 2016, when at the compact little Hope Mill Theatre in Manchester, director Jonathan O'Boyle first presented it on the stage. The intimacy of the venue, where you were never more than a few metres from all the cast, was perhaps one of its greatest impacts. So, in a space like the thousand-odd seater, Milton Keynes Theatre, the question is, does it still work? The answer is mostly yes. Hair first launched onto the stage in 1967, at the height of flower-power and more importantly for the, admittedly at times light story, the Vietnam War. These hippies are living it high, permanently and fighting the fight against that war, and all it represents. After fifty years, perhaps its relevance wains in that respect, but what we are left with is a kaleidoscopic collection of music and tripping theatre. There is no denying that Hair is an excellent show, but despite revelling in the original version of this version back in 2...

Contact Light Productions first came to the stage with their production of Bombshell on the Playhouse stage back in November 2017. It was a short, sharp, one-act play, which at the time I suggested could have been a longer two-act play and "could perhaps at times benefit from a little more light and shade, as it is unremittingly grim". So, for their second venture at the Playhouse, Drink , the short has become a sprawling three hour (with interval) production and the "unremittingly grim" has been dropped in favour of a play exploring the death of hundreds in an exploration of an American cult. Well, one out of two ain't bad. Drink takes as the main inspiration the Jonestown cult, which came to prominence in the 1970s and eventually saw under its leader, Jim Jones, the death of 918 followers in November 1978. Jones established his cult in the Guyana rainforest, and here in Drink , the fictional cult leader Marcus Moores sets own his own commune, Mooresplace ...