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Wine time: The Frogs - Southwark Playhouse

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For a show called The Frogs, there isn’t much amphibian activity in the piece. But being a show with music by Stephen Sondheim, you could be mistaken for thinking it’s a critical theatrical piece. But like Sondheim’s final musical playing at the National Theatre, while it may not be a musical that fills you with provocative thoughts, it’s a fast-paced romp through hell and back to save the world for the sake of arts. With rousing choruses, thrilling choreography and plenty of cheap laughs, what more can you want from the theatre? It’s currently playing at the Southwark Playhouse (Borough) . There isn’t much to the plot, except that Dionysus (Dan Buckley), disillusioned by the state of a divided world, and his sidekick and slave, Xanthias (Kevin McHale), cross the river Styx to the underworld to find a great writer who they can return to the world to teach the world about life. He has his mind set on bringing back George Bernard Shaw until he hears the poetry of Shakespeare.  This v...

In jokes: Jest End @Waterlooeast



It's only on until Sunday 5 December, but Jest End at the Waterloo East theatre is a bit of a guilty pleasure of fine singing and silly musical send ups.

Billed as London's answer to Forbidden Broadway, the show takes barbs at various successful (or not quite successful shows), social media obsessed actors and low pay. You don't need to be a musical theatre aficionado to enjoy the silliness of it all. But it probably helps... Particularly as many of the in-jokes are ripped from local news headlines, gossip and sending up themselves...


Still with Lizzy Connolly, Scott Garnham, Jodie Jacobs and Simon Bailey there is fine singing and some awfully complicated hand gestures (I dare not call it choreography as that was the point of a number in the show).

The show encourages you to live tweet and take pictures, so you get the feeling of what it is like when you are stuck in a West End show and someone next to you is trying to take a picture. This was @johnnyfoxlondon's effort.


Jest End is at Waterloo East until Sunday. See it if you can.

⭐︎⭐︎⭐︎⭐︎

First impressions with @johnnyfoxlondon follow...

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