A Small Mind At The Theatre

Grease  is one of the most recognised and well-remembered musicals and has some of the catchiest and most familiar songs within any musical out there. However, that memory will, for many, simply come from the classic 1978 film that made stars of many, including John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John. The stage show is a different beast though, missing a few parts key to the film including the very familiar car race and some of the songs. Also with this new touring version director Nikolai Foster has gone even more back to the original 1971 stage version by Jim Jacobs and Warren Casey, making for a grittier show in context, less of the sexist nature and fluff of the film and the T-Birds are also back to their original name of The Burger Palace Boys. What remains though is the tale of a group of kids at Rydell High School going through their teens, their early relationships and any conquests they may or may not have had. It is all very wafer-thin, even more than the film, but sure, it ...

The Last Laugh from writer and director Paul Hendy and from producers Evolution Productions has taken a gradual path to the stage following an initial short film by the same name released back in 2017. The short told of a fictional meeting of three comedy legends, Tommy Cooper, Eric Morecambe and Bob Monkhouse in a theatre dressing room. Here they share memories, jokes and sentimental moments of their life and what made them what they are. The sheer simplicity of this one-location film and the whole world of comedy evolving on a theatre stage created an inevitability that this would eventually flesh out into what now is a 70-minute play. It is perhaps no surprise either that this show has previewed for three performances at The Eric Morecambe Centre. So, the question is, has a 20-minute film made a quality stage show, or do we get the token reply to Morecambe's classic quip question "What do you think of it so far"? Much like that was a false cry of "rubbish" i...

The 2005 Dreamworks film Madagascar introduced us to a menagerie of colourful anthropomorphic animal characters shipped off to Africa after a very happy life in Central Park Zoo. This simple concept has managed to spawn three further franchise films and a musical of the same name, first performed in 2018. Designed very much for a younger audience, Madagascar the Musical lays everything on stage with broad strokes of colour and simple storytelling and from the perspective of that audience, it works really well, keeping the majority of its audience enthralled for its relatively brief one-hour 40 minutes, which includes the interval. The show is filled with energy from its performers, delivering everything in a manner suited to the animated background of the story and with a children's TV feeling. Alex the lion played by Joseph Hewlett is the friendliest lion you could imagine, happily getting on in the zoo with what would be his steak in the wild. Alex has a wonderful relationship w...

The Wizard of Oz,  first brought to the world in L. Frank Baum's 1900 novel and more famously turned into a classic 1939 film, has become a staple family tale, known throughout all ages as a result. Therefore it was little surprise that back in 2011, musical maestros Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice created their own musical of the story, incorporating original film songs by Harold Arlen and E. Y. Harburg, and populating it more with those of their own. Since its first appearance in the West End, it has had a number of tours and revivals and this new one, reaching Milton Keynes Theatre this week, plans on once again bringing it to another new audience and back to those of old. The question is, does it do the world-famous story justice? First of all, the lead definitely does the story justice, as taking on the iconic role of Dorothy is Aviva Tulley and she very much makes it her own from the very beginning with a stunning performance of the classic song Over the Rainbow a...

Rush Theatre Company has as its mission to provide opportunities, influence and instigate change within the theatre community and the community at large and this production, RUSH - A Joyous Jamaican Journey , is very much their signature show. Telling the story of the Empire Windrush and its 1948 journey from Jamaica with the first of the "invited", it is an evocative and powerful show, full of energy and love. It's true that at times, RUSH doesn't quite fit the theatre space as well as perhaps it might other performance spaces, with its rough around-the-edges production, and community styling, however with placing it in The Rep, in the very heart of Birmingham, it does get the recognition it needs more than any other space. The show primarily consists of a long history tale starting with the original colonisation of the islands of the latter-known West Indies, to the "discovery" of the islands by a certain Christopher Columbus, and the events that devastati...

Everybody's Talking About Jamie first appeared back in 2017 as a stage musical with a score written by Dan Gillespie Sells and book and lyrics by Tom MacRae and co-writer/original director Jonathan Butterill. However, the beginning of this story, and the true story that it is, came to the public eye a little earlier with a 2011 British television documentary Jamie: Drag Queen at 16 . This tells the story of Jamie Joseph Campbell (also known as Fifi la True) and his coming-of-age journey to the world of drag, and this musical inspiringly tells this tale. Without hesitation and from the outset there is no question that Everybody's Talking About Jamie is an exceptional show. The key initial reason for this is that it has a stunning collection of songs, and what better requirement for a musical? It sets the benchmark high from the very beginning number and never drops in standard. Dan Gillespie Sells songs from start to finish are pure magic, be that a proud anthem ( And You Don...

Mischief Theatre has been creating havoc in theatres across the world now for ten years with shows like The Play That Goes Wrong and  Peter Pan Goes Wrong regularly doing the rounds. Their latest incarnation, reaching Milton Keynes Theatre this week on a UK tour, is The Mind Mangler , a two-man solo show (with some audience participation) offering more chaos, this time around mind-bending-mind-reading. The Mind Mangler is played by Mischief Theatre co-founder Henry Lewis with a mixture of menace, danger, and cuddliness, a devastating combination. For anyone who has seen Lewis on stage before, you will be well aware of his tremendous stage presence, a booming voice full of the greatest of enunciation and perhaps, with The Mind Mangler he has one of his greatest creations to use these skills. It is beyond the stage presence however that this character delves, into one of self-mocking in the extreme, the ability to try to smooth his suit out as his self-importance fails as his mind-...