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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...

Revisiting in jokes and theatrical barbs: Forbidden Broadway on the West End

It has another month to run, but Forbidden Broadway is a bit of a guilty pleasure. Full of in-jokes and send ups of shows on the West End (and Broadway) it is a lot of fun, but also a chance to see four actors wow us with their singing and comic abilities.

The silliness becomes infectious to the point that the spoof of Once becomes so hysterically funny even the cast have trouble keeping it together.

Christinia Bianco is off this week, but Laura Tebbutt is an equally funny impersonator - particularly of Kristin Chenoweth and Idina Menzel. Let it blow (a parody of the enduring song Let it Go) is a particularly evening highlight.

Damian Humbley is hilarious as he sends up Cameron Mackintosh and the revival of Miss Saigon, or playing Jean Valjean in Les Miserables.

Anna-Jane Casey is naturally funny but particularly hilarious in spoofs on Sondheim, Wicked and the Cheaper Evita that's currently touring the UK.

Ben Lewis manages to be hilarious, particularly in the send up of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels that is playing down the road as a star vehicle for an actor with questionable vocal abilities.

It runs for another month. Check out the show's Youtube clips as well. The Elaine Paige impersonations are hilarious. Katherine Kingsley (below) seems to nail it...

First impressions after the show (including a mild disruption as @Johnnyfoxlondon gets so excited talking about the show he drops his glasses and a homeless man picks them up for him) follow:



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