Having received critical acclaim when it premiered at the Noel Coward theatre last year, I think that we all knew that it wouldn't be long before Mischief Theatre's The Comedy About Spies returned to the glittering West End. And we were right to assume as it comes roaring back, this time taking up residence at the larger Adelphi Theatre where it remains just as slick, just as ambitious and just as funny. Stepping away from their much loved and well oiled goes wrong machine, T

One of the many things about attending the Edinburgh Fringe year after year is the opportunity both to discover shows and/or performers that you become a fan of and to revisit them year after year. It was a couple of years ago that I first attended a Christopher Hall stand up show, then in Gilded Balloon at the Museum, and it was one of the funniest things I saw that year. So when I found that Hall was returning this year with his new show Pizazz, I knew I simply had to be th

With the Edinburgh Fringe, there is always so much to see, so much to choose from and I’m here to tell you that sometimes it’s just worth giving something a go, because you might just stumble across a gem that stays with you. That is exactly what happened to me during my first ever trip to the fringe in 2022 when I found a show called The Importance of Being…Earnest? By a company called Say It Again, Sorry? Since that day this show, now called simply …Earnest? Has become a hu

Sometimes at the Edinburgh Fringe, you can find yourself with a gap in your schedule and pondering what to see next. When there is so much to choose from, it is impossible to be aware of everything and difficult to narrow down your options. And that is where the flyers come in, and sometimes on occasion someone handing out those flyers can catch you at just the right time. I was looking for something starting within the next hour to fit in before my next pre-booked show when

What makes being a musical theatre fan so wonderful is that everyone has different opinions and that everyone likes different things, but even so there are some things that we can all agree on and that is that sometimes there are musicals that are just bad. They can be badly received by the critics, be a complete lose at the bank and run for only a handful of performances, but hidden in a pile of terrible can be a little glittering gem; one song that redeems a bad musical. An

To quote another hit fringe show '...Earnest?', let's say 'Everyone struggles with Shakespeare'. It's a well known fact that learning and memorising the words of one of history's most famous writers, the great William Shakespeare, is incredibly difficult. The language is complicated and the plot lines a little bit confusing, so you would think that people would be out to make things are easy as possible when it comes to performing the bard, but in the case of Shake It Up, the

Flighty - ‘someone who is silly, irresponsible, and not serious’. That is how Philomena McGuinness is described, and the way in which she has been described since birth. With her cheeky smile, bright eyes and determination to state that she is, in fact, a poet despite having never written a thing, Philomena never pictured herself as a nurse. But that is exactly what she becomes, moving from Dublin to London, helping her patients and moving from hospital to hospital throughout

A man wearing a giant papier mâché head stumbles through the crowded audience desperately trying to find his mates in order to hand over his mate, he’s overexcited, so much so that if he had a tail he’d be wagging it, drinks going everywhere and no one seems to mind. This is Spencer Jones: Dogs, and it’s his chaotic exciting world and we’ve just fallen into it hook, line and sinker. Surrounded by puppets, masks, paintings and an hilariously scruffy remote control dog that may

Darcy O’Shea is an octogenarian, who has lived a full and interesting life of ups and downs, career changes and love, both found and lost, whilst Maddie is in her thirties not quite sure where her life is headed as she tries to build a career as a writer and embrace that whole new year new me mentality. Their paths cross when Maddie joins Run Relate, where exercise meets elderly community support. But Darcy doesn’t want any help. Nevertheless, an odd but beautiful little frie

Ben Stone is a detective inspector, praised, celebrated, young and at the top of his game. But he’s ready to leave it all behind, much to the shock of his friends and family. As they gather for his murder mystery themed 25th birthday party, the candles are not the only things getting snuffed out. Ben suspects that someone in his circle is lying, and plots to stage his own murder to find the foe, but a black out, a brief moment, and Ben is dead for real in the chair. The third

Did you know that you can travel from London to Patagonia by train? No? Well neither did the cast of Pinch Punch Impro’s Locomotive for Murder: The Improvised Whodunnit. Based entirely on suggestions by the excited and more than happy to be involved audience, the five person cast improvise a thrilling murder mystery full of twists and turns where even they don’t know whodunnit until the the big reveal. You only have to walk a few paces over the cobbles to find a band of impro

Do you remember the days of being a teenager when music and the pop area you loved meant so much more than you could ever imagine now? Do you remember rushing home to watch Top of the Pops, or turning up the volume in attempt to block out everything that is happening around you? Do you remember the friendships built on that adoration of that one band you loved more than anything? That was Rachel, Claire, Debbie, Heather and Zoe, and their love of The Boys, with Greatest Days

When the world first saw War Horse Joey stride across the stage nearly 20 years ago, it felt like we had never seen anything like him before. Puppeteered by three skilled artists, Joey was brought to life with care and emotion as we see witnessed an animal character take centre stage as a lead role in his own story. And he took the world by storm. And even now, it is still as breathtaking, Joey is still awe inspiring and the story of the bond between boy and beast is just as

The irony isn't lost on me when one of the coolest places to be during a blistering London heatwave is ancient Greece, otherwise known as Hercules at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane, the theatre still glistening from its refurbishment and the Disney musical still delighting audience members with its comedy, big dance numbers and fun. Born to Zeus and Hera (Joel Benjamin and Ellie Mitchell), Hercules (Luke Brady) is a god destined for greatness, or that's how it should have been.

The French Revolution has began, a reign of terror after the creation of the first republic and Madame La Guillotine is being kept busy beheading aristos much to the delight of those fighters manning the barricades. But lurking in the shadows, hidden by genius guises and armed with a witty, quick thinking brain, is a secretive man, a vigilante of sorts, sneaking in and helping aristocrats escape France before their necks lie on the block, leaving nothing behind him to trace b

Leonard Vole: handsome, charming and an all-around nice young man just simply trying to get by in life. But now he finds himself standing in the dock, accused of murder. Emily French, a wealthy spinster, has been found dead in her home, the exact home Leonard has been visiting on a regular basis having formed a friendship with the older woman, but he insists that he is innocent. He stands in the dock as experts, Ms French’s housekeeper and even his own wife Romaine are called

Lima, Peru. Jesús is gearing up for his first communion, seen as a miracle through the eyes of his mother and an object of pride by his father, raised in a religious household where he is regularly told that 'God loves you'. But has Jesús comes of age, it is a sexual awakening that takes hold rather than a religious one with the realisation that he loves Jesus, perhaps too much. Penned by, and starring, Sergio Maggiolo as Jesús (pronounced hayzuss) alongside partner Guido Gar

My ideal has always been to love some one of the name of Ernest. High society, eligible bachelors, different identities for the town and the country, all wrapped up in flowers, flamboyancy and fun. Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Ernest came powering on all cylinders to the National Theatre in 2024, with more flair, more fashion and more love is love than ever before, and after a second run at the Noel Coward Theatre more recently, this production now lands right in our

February 1895 ‘The Importance of Being Earnest’, the play that would go on to be known as Oscar Wilde’s masterpiece, premiered both representing and mocking late Victorian society with its story of double lives, society ideas and romance, sending Oscar Wilde to new higher levels of fame. Just 3 months later in May 1895, Oscar Wilde was arrested for ‘Gross indecency for Homosexual acts’ Now, 130 years later, Max Webster’s staging of that masterpiece fresh from a festive pe

Just as I made a ‘if I had a nickel’ joke between ‘Vagabond Skies’ and ‘Saving Mozart’ just a few months ago, I feel compelled to make another, for if I saw two shows that push the once hidden stories of musically gifted sisters overshadowed by their brothers and forced to be the traditional wife, I would have two nickels, which wouldn’t get you far in today’s expensive world, but it is a little odd. But, whilst ‘Saving Mozart’ celebrated the story of Nannerl Mozart with soar