Featured Post

High anxiety: Collapse - Riverside Studios

Image
It’s a brave or maybe slightly provocative production to use Hammersmith Bridge on their artwork for a show called Collapse, which is about how everything collapses—poorly maintained bridges, relationships, and jobs. Nothing works. That’s probably too close to home for Hammersmith residents stuck with a magnificently listed and useless bridge on their front door. It gets even weirder when you realise the piece is staged in what looks like a meeting room with a bar. However, keeping things together in the most unlikely of circumstances is at the heart of Allison Moore's witty and engaging four-hander, which is currently having a limited engagement at Riverside Studios . The piece opens with Hannah (Emma Haines) about to get an injection from her husband (Keenan Heinzelmann). They’re struggling for a baby, and he’s struggling to get out of bed. But he managed to give her a shot of hormones before she started worrying about the rest of the day. She’s unsure she will keep her job with ...

Try to say no to this: In The Heights @Intheheightsldn


It's been over a year since In The Heights stormed London. It is back at the Kings Cross Theatre sounding even better than before.

This is a thrilling show directed by Luke Sheppard. It's full of terrific performances, spectacular choreography by Drew McOnie and a pulsating latin, pop and hip-hop-fused musical score by Lin-Manuel Miranda.
With a book by Quiara Alegría Hudes, it is a slice of life from Washington Heights New York during one hot summer. The neighbourhood is changing with rents going up and people moving out. Yet there is hope and someone in the neighbourhood has won the lottery.

The cast includes Sam Mackay in the lead as Usnavi, David Bedella, Josie Benson, a wonderfully hilarious (and fabulously pregnant) Victoria Hamilton-Barritt and former Sugababe Jade Ewen. Broadway star Joe Aaron Reid has also joined the cast as Benny.

It's interesting that in this show yet again finds itself playing in a neighbourhood of significant change (Kings Cross). And as for Washington Heights, in the years since it was written the future of corner stores that feature in the show are even bleaker.

But despite the reality there is so much fun to be had in this piece. It will have you grooving along in your seat or wanting to get up and dance with the cast.

Miranda, who is taking the musical theatre world by storm again with his period musical Hamilton talks about In The Heights in this recent New York Times podcast. He describes how hip hop, musical theatre and the muppets were among the sounds he grew up with... Something we can all relate to...

In The Heights is sharing the Kings Cross Theatre with the Railway Children and so there are some nice touches with the railway station entrance covered in graffiti and New York Subway signs (which no doubt will be removed so they don't confuse the children too much). It is running through to January. Worth catching more than once.

⭐︎⭐︎⭐︎⭐︎

 

Popular posts from this blog

Opera and full frontal nudity: Rigoletto

Image
David McVicar's oddly modern production of Rigoletto is back at the Royal Opera House . This modern and minimalist dark production has evolved over the years. It is better lit now but there is still an orgy and full frontal nudity within the first thirty minutes. This enables anyone not in the stalls an excellent view of a flaccid penis and a nicely shaved bush. But as time goes it seems more and more superfluous to the main focus of this tragedy of a court jester who seeks revenge. Here is hoping that the production continues to evolve... Conductor John Eliot Gardiner keeps the music well paced. Dimitri Platanias in the title role sounded great and received a rapturous applause for his interpretation of the role. You get a sense more of the doting father rather than the court jester or cursed man here. Vittorio Grigolo plays the Duke and sounds too lovely to be the cad the role calls for, but it is hard not to like when he is on stage anyway. And it is easier to understan...
Read more...

Fantasies: Afterglow @Swkplay

Image
Nowadays no self-respecting gay play can be staged without full frontal nudity of some kind. It feels like the default response for the modern gay play now that gay rights are no longer an issue .   Afterglow, currently playing at Southwark Playhouse , serves it up in spades. From the beginning, three men are in a bed, naked. There’s what appears to be a very brief exhalation of ecstasy, before the obligatory rush to the shower. But the gratuitous nudity and excellent performances can’t conceal this is a pretty conventional and predictable story about a fantasy couple.  The three men in the simultaneous orgasm at the start of the piece are Josh, Alex and Darius. Josh and Alex seem to live in a New York world where they can afford a rooftop apartment in Manhattan while holding jobs as a theatre director and a grad student in chemistry. As writer S. Asher Gelman based it on his own experiences, perhaps gay plays with full frontal nudity are the way to achieve financial ...
Read more...

Play ball: Damn Yankees @LandorTheatre

Image
Damn Yankees at the Landor Theatre is one hell of a fun, sexy show. A great cast of dancers and singers give this show about a man who sells his soul to get on his beloved baseball team (and give them a chance of winning) new legs and balls. It also helps to up the ante with the sexiness with some healthy doses of cleavage and legs (and that's just the men). The musical is a retelling of the Faust story set in the 1950s when the New York Yankees dominated the game.
Read more...