Oh look, what a shock. She’s writing about a mischief show again. But let’s be honest here, is that really a surprise? Mischief Theatre has something that just keeps on dragging me back, and the most addictive of the lot for me, ‘The Play That Goes Wrong’. People may, and do, ask me why I keep seeing it, how on Earth I am not bored of it yet and I give the same answer every time. How can I get bored of something that is different every single time. Different cast combinations

Mischief Movie Night, Fleabag and Six. What do they all have in common? Well, these three massive hit shows all come from humble beginnings, getting their start in the world at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and now another success story has come barrelling out of its Fringe starting block to global popularity: The Choir of Man, which premiered at the festival in 2017. Featuring an all-male cast of talented vocalists, musicians and wordsmiths, The Choir of Man invites the audi

It’s perhaps one of the most popular Christmas movies around, with merchandise flooding the shelves every year and a family rewatch becoming a tradition for many, and since it’s stage debut in 2010, Elf has proven just as loved on stage as it is on screen. With success across North America and beyond, 2022 saw the festive musical return to the London stage for its second run since 2015, returning once more to the vast Dominion Theatre. It is maybe safe to assume that most peo

It’s a Disney classic and a family favourite, delighting all ages for many years and consistently raising the bar for the type of special effects that can be achieved in a live stage production. ‘Mary Poppins’, the world’s most magical nanny, with her technicolour adventures, fantastic stories, and mystical ways, has been a stage hit since 2004, enjoying London and New York success and popular tours. It swooped back into the West End, back into the Prince Edward Theatre in 20

Please note, the photographs used this in review may not feature the cast members mentioned as at the performance I attended, a number of roles were played by the talented understudies. Whilst it is not uncommon for a musical to seek inspiration from real life events, I don’t think, looking back a few years now, that someone would have thought that a musical based on the events on and surrounding September 11th, 2001, would work, let alone prove to be a global hit. When you t

Okay, hands up in the air, I’ll admit. I’ve never seen the film ‘Sister Act’. Shocking, I know, as many of you may consider it a classic, but here we are. So, other than knowing a few of the songs and having a very basic idea of the plot, I walked into the UK Tour of ‘Sister Act The Musical’ at Theatre Royal Plymouth relatively blind. ‘Sister Act’ tells the story of singer Deloris Van Cartier (played here by Sandra Marvin), who after witnessing her gangster boyfriend Curtis (

Pantomimes are as much a part of Christmas as the decorations, the festive TV specials, and the roast dinner with all the trimmings. Up and down the country over the next month or so, audiences will be delighted with stories of fairy tales complete with popular music, outlandish costumes, big song, and dance numbers and plenty of audience interaction, and whilst theatres are now fully open again, Peter Duncan’s Panto Online will continue to provide at home entertainment this

These days jukebox musicals, seen as guaranteed crowd pleasers, are commonplace up and down the country, entertaining those visiting the glittering west end and sending audiences flocking to their regional theatres in their droves. These popular shows often rely heavily on a singer/group’s most well-known hits, the types of songs that have theatregoers proclaiming, ‘hey I know this one’ and sending them home with a tune stuck in their heads, but sometimes a show can deep dive

When you think of Mischief Theatre images of slapstick hilarity, showbusiness-y attempts gone wrong, and the now globally known Cornley Polytechnic Drama Society spring to mind and as much as we love this and it has been a great success for the company, recent years have seen Mischief branch out to new things. ‘Groan Ups’ saw the company step away from the old school slapstick and towards more wordplay and some more serious topics and with their newest offering ‘Good Luck, St

Catchy songs, custard pies and peddle cars, ‘Bugsy Malone’ is a classic. Seen as a gangster movie for kids, it takes us back to 1920’s New York, when Speakeasy’s were all the rage and gang warfare was rife. The popular 1976 film saw the entire cast consist of children, playing adult roles with their singing voices dubbed by adults, so how exactly does that transfer to the stage. Directed by Sean Holmes and choreographed by Drew McOnie, this Lyric Hammersmith production of ‘Bu

Co-produced by Figueteatret I Nordland (Nordland Visual Theatre) and Theatre Royal Plymouth, and presented by Extraordinary Bodies, ‘Delicate’ explores the idea that sometimes in order to find your place in the world, things need to go wrong and fall apart. What exactly does the word ‘Delicate’ mean? The Cambridge Dictionary defines it as ‘needing careful treatment, especially because easily damaged’, but how does that apply to someone’s life. In this production, we are intro

Please note that the photographs featured here may not feature all of the cast members mentioned in this review. Billed as ‘theatre as live as it gets’, the UK Tour of ‘An Improbable Musical’ invites the audience to witness the creation of a brand new musical every night, based purely on tiny suggestions from audience members and made up as it goes along by a gang of world class improvisors. Fans of ‘Showstopper: The Improvised Musical’ and ‘Mischief Movie Night’ may think th

If you think of theatre shows that feature stories from the LGBTQ+ Community, it may be ‘Everybody’s Talking About Jamie’ or ‘Kinky Boots’ that spring to mind, shows telling stories of those who struggle to be accepted for being themselves and it is these kind of stories that we often here but here is where Rob Madge’s ‘My Son’s a Queer (But What Can You Do?)’ breaks the mould. This is a show that is all about acceptance, but not the search for it. In this auto-biographical p

Following on from such successes as ‘The Red’ and ‘The Hound of the Baskervilles’, Original Theatre returns with their next online offering; Shomit Dutta’s ‘Stumped’. This interesting piece tells the story of two great playwrights, Samuel Beckett (played here by Stephen Tompkinson) and Harold Pinter (played by Andrew Lancel). The two were great friends and they shared a love for cricket, something that Pinter described as ‘the greatest thing that God created on Earth’, with t

Fresh from the Edinburgh Fringe, performer and producer Shôn Dale-Jones brings ‘Still Floating’ to the Theatre Royal Plymouth, revisiting his award-winning show ‘Floating’ from 2006 and twisting it with a present day tale of returning home and exploring how things have changed. In 2006, Dale-Jones played his on-stage alter ego Hugh Hughes in ‘Floating’, telling the surreal and comical tale of Anglesey floating away from the mainland, becoming an independent land under the rul

Years on from the success and popularity of shows such as Horrible Histories (still pleasing audiences to this day), the idea of using shows with plenty of music to make education fun, celebrated dramatist Chris Bush and songwriter Miranda Cooper have adapted Kate Pankhurst’s picture book celebrating incredible women for the stage, creating a new girl power musical that both entertains and inspires. Fantastically Great Women Who Changed The World (recently seen at the Edinbur

So, it turns out that going wrong isn’t always a bad thing. Who would have thought that a little play about a drama company trying to put on a play when everything that could go wrong does exactly that would become one of the most successful stage comedies around? But here we are. That little show that started its life in a pub theatre is now a huge hit. It’s about to celebrate its eighth birthday and has become the longest running show ever to play in London’s Duchess Theatr

Images not of performances mentioned Over the years, the Edinburgh Fringe has become known for many things; street performers, mad dashes from venue to venue and comedy acts that are simply impossible to resist. Improv comedy has always proved a popular choice at the festival, and some theatre companies have become so well known for it that they are amongst the top choice to see at the fringe. And when it comes to inventing a show on the spot, you can’t go wrong with the Show

Beautiful: The Carole King Musical, Tina: The Tina Turner Musical, Get Up, Stand Up: The Bob Marley Musical, The Cher Show, and Jersey Boys. It’s safe to say that musicals telling the stories of real-life music stars aren’t exactly in short supply, and you’d be forgiven for wondering if perhaps there wasn’t space for another but with so many music stars out there with a story to tell about what really happened behind the glamour of their careers, it’s not really surprising th

‘You can’t please everyone’ It’s a saying that most people have probably heard before, and many people probably do fall into the idea of being a ‘people pleaser’, but is it actually possible to please everyone? Well, that is exactly what Charlie Russell, well known for being a part of the original Mischief Theatre team, set out to do with her debut solo fringe show ‘Charlie Russell Aims To Please’. Taking suggestions from the audience gathered in the small but cosy Pleasance