Worth the wait?   Sometimes, no matter how big a fan you are of something, there can be a part of that something that simply escapes you, and it can take some time to find it. As you may be aware, I am a huge fan of all thing’s mischief theatre, and I’ve seen a lot of it. The Play That Goes Wrong (23 times and counting), The Comedy About A Bank Robbery, Magic Goes Wrong, Groan Ups, Good Luck Studio and Mischief Movie Night. But there has been one Mischief Theatre production t

Rodgers and Hammerstein, a double act famed for the role that they played in the world of musical theatre. Oklahoma! Carousel. The Sound of Music. Cinderella. South. Pacific. I could go and on, but I won’t. I just wanted to give you a taste of this team’s catalogue. These musicals are deemed classics, they are loved, adored the world over, timeless. And now out of a UK Tour, another R&H classic is once again charming audiences with its old school style, stunning costumes and

With shows like Midsomer Murders, Death in Paradise, Endeavour, and Vera still proving as popular as ever on television, it’s no wonder that murder mystery seemed to be a popular choice at this year’s Edinburgh Fringe. After all, everyone loves a mystery, a puzzle, the question of who done it, but with A Highly Suspect Murder: Murder at the Movies, this wasn’t your average sit back and enjoy theatre production. No, here the audience themselves become the detective and you ar

Politics. A hot topic, but perhaps not a popular one, especially at the moment but let’s take a step away from the current political situation and instead look at the past. After all, they do say that hindsight is a fine thing, and even in politics, time changes things and can even open the door for comedy, or to be more precise, satire. Penned by Harry Hill, with music by Steve Brown, Tony! The Tony Blair Rock Opera rips up the rule book, recounting the early life and politi

At the Edinburgh Fringe, you don’t have to look very hard to find a show that involves at least some element of improv, and over the years some now rather well-known theatre companies have made a name for themselves doing just that; Showstopper! The Improvised Musical and Mischief Theatre to give you just a couple of examples, now legends in the world of improvisation. But now, I firmly believe that you can add another company who have proven themselves to be experts in the a

Rom-Coms. Stereotypical. Predictable. Formulaic. Loved or loathed. With ‘Actually, Love’, GOYA Theatre explore the tropes of rom-coms in a refreshing manner through the eyes of Alex (Sam Woof, also the writer of the piece) and Stevie (Jordan Broatch) as they question both how the genre works and their own relationship with each other. Alex is a struggling songwriter who has been told to just write a love song, if only it was that easy, and Stevie is an actor who upon returnin

Raise your hand if you love musicals, and a cry of me, me, me is heard. Whether you aspire of being on the stage yourself, or just love the feeling of taking your seat in the auditorium and witnessing something wonderful, there will be something in Alexander S. Bermange’s ‘I Wish My Life Were Like A Musical’ that will feel like it was written and it is being performed just for you. In this exploration of musical theatre, from the viewpoints of both the performer and the fan,

Punctuation can make all the difference and can be incredibly important when it comes to naming something, after all it is punctuation that takes a classic story by Oscar Wilde and gives it a new title in the case of this production. And with an ellipsis and a question mark, Wilde’s story of nobility’s search for entertainment and escape from triviality becomes Say It Again Sorry’s ‘The Importance of Being… Earnest?’, a show that takes the story and twists it, mixes it delici

What do you get when you combine classical music, a classic horror story and the much-loved science fiction genre? A strange combination, you might just say, but in the case of Bowjangles: Dracula in Space, it just works. String quartet Bowjangles are no strangers to the Fringe, having won ‘Spirit of the Fringe’ with their previous show Excalibow back in 2018. As they proudly proclaim, they are genre spanners, taking everything you might know about string quartets and flippin

Laughter is something that the Edinburgh Fringe is certainly not short of, comedy is a part of its beating heart, something that people go to the festival for. But not all comedy productions set out with the sole purpose of making you laugh. In Playing Latinx, a solo show by Guido Garcia Lueches, comedy is used as a tool to convey an important message in a way that both entertains and educates. Taking place in Cairns Lecture Theatre, Summerhall, Playing Latinx takes the form

‘This is not fiction’. This is the phrase that covers the posters for ‘I, Daniel Blake’, the new stage adaptation of Ken Loach’s 2016 film of the same title. When the film, which depicts the life of Dan as he battles against the state, jumping through hoops as he is declared fit to work against doctor’s orders, was released it was commented upon in the house of commons, where politicians declared it a work of fiction. But in today’s world, where there are more food banks than

Please note, photos included are general Showstopper images, not show specific What does it take to construct a musical? A storyline, music, lyrics, choreography, set, costumes; all of that and you are only skimming the surface, all of that and there is possibly months and months of work to be done in order to get it all running smoothly. That is, of course, unless you are about to witness an entire musical, plot, songs and all, pieced together in just 2 hours. Madness, I hea

Okay, hands up, I’ll admit. I am one of those people who has never really ‘got’ Shakespeare. The language has always been a struggle for me, and I was always worried that I wouldn’t understand it but here we go, I decided to finally give it a go with the Stafford Gatehouse’s ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’, the first indoor production in the history of the Stafford Shakespeare Festival. With the action transported to Athens, under the direction of Sean Turner (The Play That Goes

Heartbreak, grief, treacherous journeys, loss, war, mental health and the process of seeking asylum, a hard-hitting combination that may be difficult to convey in a way which people would be able to understand and relate too, but these are all topics that are bravely and sensitively covered in the stage adaptation of Christy Lefteri’s number one best seller ‘The Beekeeper of Aleppo’. Driven from their home by war and threats upon their lives, married couple Nuri (Alfred Clay)

When it comes to stage productions, taking a classic story and giving it a twist is hardly something new, from ‘Unexpected Twist’ and ‘Bleak Expectations’, to Say It Again Sorry’s fringe hit ‘The Importance of being… Earnest’ to name but a few. And now here we are with the Olivier Award winning ‘Pride & Prejudice* (*Sort of), a show that takes the classic Jane Austen story, throws it into the mixing pot and tops it up with dashes of Six, lashes of Jukebox musical fun and even

Growing up, I think it’s safe to assume that most children stumbled across at least one Roald Dahl story. Tales that oozed with magic, cheekiness, mystery and everyone, be that child or adult, ultimately getting what they deserved. The Twits, George’s Marvellous Medicine, James and the Giant Peach, the list could go on and on, but over the years a few of these classic stories have leapt from the pages onto our stages, with the biggest hits being Matilda and Charlie and the Ch

Oh look, just when you thought that she may have finally moved on and found something else to obsess over, she’s back and she’s talking about ‘The Play That Goes Wrong’ again. Okay, I’ll admit, you may be starting to wonder why on earth I keep going back, or how on earth I still laugh at a comedy that I have now seen 21 times, and I hope you’ll be satisfied with my answer to those questions. One – I keep going back because it makes me happy, pure and simple. I feel a sense of

These days, screen to stage adaptations is about as common as Sunday roasts and train strikes, but something that is perhaps a little bit less common in the world of theatre is a radio to stage adaptation, but here we are. ‘Bleak Expectations’ a comedy by Mark Evans premiered on BBC Radio 4 back in 2007, and has proved wickedly popular since, with the show still being broadcast on a regular basis on BBC Radio 4 Extra. A pastiche of the works of Charles Dickens, it follows Phi

What do you get when you mix a little bit of ‘Hamilton’ with a dash of ‘Six’, add a little drop of ‘Fantastically Great Women Who Changed The World’ and throw in just a smidgeon of ‘Horrible Histories’ for good measure? Well, dear reader, I’ll tell you what you get. If you add all of those things together, you get ‘Operation Mincemeat’, the little musical that is making a big impact and taking the West End by storm. In real life, Operation Mincemeat was a little known plot th

Please note - The photographs in this review feature the original cast, not the cast that are currently starring in the production It isn’t uncommon for stage productions these days to have had other lives before they even reach the stage itself, with screen to stage adaptations becoming increasingly popular and the idea of audience members having some idea of what to expect helping to put bums on seats. In the case of this particular production, it was Deborah Moggach’s 2004