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Prayers and thoughts: The Inseparables @Finboroughtheatre

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The Inseparables brings Simone de Beauvoir’s posthumously published novel to life. It traces a lifelong friendship between Sylve and Andrée, two unconventional girls who grew up in a stifling world where being a woman meant getting married or entering a convent. With a quick pace and engaging performances from the two leads, it is a journey back into the 20th century that captures two unconventional women trapped in a conventional world that will have you reflecting on how much or little things have moved on in the last century. It’s currently playing at the Finborough Theatre .  We’re introduced to Sylve praying for her country, France, to be saved from the war and indoctrinated into the world of faith and obedience. But too smart for all that, her life was full of detached guilt and boredom. But when she meets Andrée, a new arrival at her school, she is struck by how different she is from everyone else. She was burned in a fire and had a passion for life that nobody else she knew...

In jokes and big vocals: Forbidden Broadway @MenChocFactory

If you are overly familiar with musical theatre and what is on offer on the West End, catching Forbidden Broadway at the Menier Chocolate Factory is a must this summer.

The long running series from New York, conceived and written by Gerard Alessandrini, it is a combination of greatest hits from previous incarnations of the show and wry new observations.

The new material includes send ups of Matilda and an over-reliance on child actors in British musicals, Once with its bizarre plot device and the foul mouthed Book of Mormon.


There is a hilarious dig at the tendency for the Chichester Festival to come up with endless bland revivals of old hoary musicals (such as The Pyjama Game). But the best song in the show is actually not from a musical (yet), but from Disney's Frozen. Idina Menzel's /Adele Dazeem's showstopping song, Let it Go, is presented as Let it Blow, referring to her bellowing vocals and how "nodes never bothered me anyway".

Other shows such as overblown productions of Miss Saigon and the never-ending run of Phantom and Les Miserables are also sent up rather cheekily.

The corporatisation of the West End is lamented in the parodies, but of course savvy Londoners know that Fringe venues like the Chocolate Factory are much better places to catch theatrical entertainment nowadays anyway.

It is not just cheap laughs however as there is a very fine cast of singers (and impersonators). Included in the lineup is Anna-Jane Casey and Sophie-Louise Dann. Both ladies only have to show their faces to elicit laughs. There is also a surprise comic turn by Damian Hubley, who after the short run with Andrew Lippa's cabaret, shows he knows a thing or two about comic timing.

All good fun and a great show. Performances run through to 16 August at the Chocolate Factory.

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Photos: Production Photos

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