Theatre

Portraits: Terrie-May McNulty

August 6, 2010

Earlier this week, I did a photo shoot with my friend, actor Terrie-May McNulty. She will shortly be performing her one-woman cabaret, Oops!, as part of her fund-raising efforts to further her acting education.

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Such Tweet Sorrow: website-specific theatre that works

April 25, 2010

I have to admit that when I heard a modern day version of Romeo and Juliet was to be ‘staged’ on Twitter, I was sceptical. Not necessarily that it would be possible to play out a series of characters posting online as if they were real — that has been done before. YouTube had lonelygirl15, […]

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UPDATED: Love Never Dies, in more than 140 characters

March 9, 2010

Andrew Lloyd Webber’s latest West End show, Love Never Dies, receives its formal press night tonight, which means that the papers tomorrow will be full of reviews. Over at my place of work we’ll have a special podcast in which I talk about the show with Matt, our reviewer, as well as looking at the […]

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Six days, five shows, some dancers and a requiem

February 12, 2010

After Monday’s attendance at Richmond Theatre for Lord Arthur Savile’s Crime, this has turned into a theatre-packed week. On Tuesday, I went to the Soho Theatre to review gay theatre legend Bette Bourne being ‘interviewed’ by Mark Ravenhill. The inverted commas are because, although the evening was based on transcripts of interview conversations between the […]

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Panto season again (oh yes, it is)

December 14, 2009

While everybody else is winding down in time for Christmas, every year The Stage offices get busier and busier. The reduced amount of time available to get our end-of-year issues out is compounded by the fact that, for our reviews section, we’re hitting the busiest time of the year. We try and cover as many […]

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The lights aren’t quite out on Avenue Q

November 19, 2009

As the final part of our Show and Stay theatre quiz prize, Ade and I last night ventured to the Gielgud Theatre to see Avenue Q. We had great seats — pretty near the centre of the Row F stalls — but there were elements of the show we couldn’t see. Nor could anyone else, […]

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Quick theatre round-up

October 28, 2009

I know I haven’t been blogging here much lately: these things tend to come in fits and spurts, so I may do some more posts for a bit. That said, it’s coming up to my annual attempt to participate in NaNoWriMo so I may go quiet on the blogging front again. Anyway, over the last […]

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Ella sings Rodgers and Hart

August 7, 2009

At the end of my last post about Cadogan Hall’s Rodgers and Hart tribute concert, I said: searching Amazon or iTunes for some Rodgers and Hart numbers would make for a fruitful weekend. Let me help you in that task. The best album of Rodgers and Hart songs is by the peerless Ella Fitzgerald: Amazon.co.uk […]

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Blink! – the double-take

July 29, 2009

Last night, Paul and I went back to the Above the Stag theatre in Victoria to see Blink!, a revue about songs from musicals that closed early. For both of us it was our second time to see the show, although we’d previously seen it on different nights. My first was on press night, when […]

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Ernie, get your gun

July 27, 2009

It appears that I will only have a limited time to catch the new West End musical sensation, Too Close to the Sun, which is to close on August 8. Press night was only on Friday, and word started to trickle through of the closure over the weekend. That’s quick, even for a musical from […]

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Sister Act – the London cast recording

July 27, 2009

I’ve yet to manage to get to see Sister Act, despite having been at the press launch back in February. However, I knew enough about the show, the cats and the creatives to know I wanted the cast recording as soon as it came out. I pre-ordered my copy from iTunes, mainly because the Amazon […]

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A photoshoot for Edinburgh

July 24, 2009

Yesterday, The Stage undertook the photoshoot for its annual Edinburgh Festivals issue. We’ll have ten ‘acts’, for want of a better word — actually, it’s seven actors, one cabaret duo, one writer and one director — who were photographed separately, as well as in a group shot that will be used on the cover. Organised […]

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Jerusalem at the Royal Court

July 23, 2009

On Tuesday, I went along to the Royal Court to accompany the lovely Anna to see Jerusalem by Jez Butterworth. I was going to write up a review here, but there seems little point, as Anna’s sums it up so brilliantly: Byron, then, would be a gift to any actor, but few could inhabit him […]

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West End Live 2009

June 23, 2009

On Saturday, I went to Leicester Square to see some of the onstage performances put together by Westminster City Countil as part of the annual West End Live event. Due to engineering works on train lines, and the long queueing time to get into the Leicester Square stage area, I missed performances by the cast […]

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Menken serenade

February 4, 2009

Tonight, I was lucky enough to be invited to the press launch of Sister Act: the Musical, which starts previews in May at the London Palladium after The Sound of Music leaves the West End to tour the UK. A lot of the usual PR guff — how wonderful an opportunity it is, how great […]

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2008′s panto reviews

December 22, 2008

Only three to do this year (four if you count an additional Christmas-themed show). And now they’re all done and available online, so the holiday starts here! 09/12/08: Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Elgiva, Chesham 17/12/08: Cinderella, Civic Centre Aylesbury 22/12/08: Aladdin,Watersmeet, Rickmansworth And the additional Christmas show: 19/12/08: Christmas with the Rat Pack […]

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An overview of reviews

December 1, 2008

I’m about to enter full-on panto reviewing mode again, although given my out-of-town location and lack of driving ability the number of productions I get allocated is far fewer than some of our more hardy reviewers. Before I do, I wanted to make sure that my own record of what I’ve reviewed for The Stage […]

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Screeny Todd

November 14, 2008

Last night I took Paul along to see Sweeney Todd at the Union Theatre, which I was reviewing. As someone whose musical theatre experience is much larger than mine, it came as something of a shock that this was to be Paul’s first Sweeney. As it was, it was only half of his first Sweeney […]

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Lee Mead

December 20, 2007

Originally published in the December 20, 2007 issue of The Stage The winner of BBC1’s Any Dream Will Do, Lee Mead, took to the stage as Joseph - of Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat fame - in July. He talks to Scott Matthewman about becoming the West End’s leading man “I was quite naive,” admits Lee Mead […]

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Showpeople: Daniel Boys

September 27, 2007

This interview first appeared in The Stage, September 27, 2007, as promotion for I Love You Because at the Landor Theatre. Read my review Daniel Boys, who came sixth in the BBC’s talent hunt Any Dream Will Do? will be playing the role of Austin Bennet in the musical I Love You Because, a genderswapped […]

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All about All About My Mother

September 5, 2007

So last night I was at the press night for All About My Mother, the Old Vic’s new adaptation of Pedro Almodovar’s classic film. My review’s online now, and will be in print in next week’s issue of The Stage. In the meantime, the condensed version: Oh. Dear. God. It got three stars in the […]

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Curtain Up: Any Dream Will Do

March 29, 2007

This article first appeared in the March 29, 2007 issue of The Stage — BBC1 and Lloyd Webber launch second musical talent show to find star of Joseph and The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat by Scott Matthewman BBC1 returns to the musical theatre talent show arena this weekend, as Any Dream Will Do begins its search […]

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