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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...

Dire sheep: Big Brother Blitzkrieg @KingsHeadThtr


It seems like a great concept: after many rejections from Vienna's art school and a botched suicide attempt, Hitler wakes up in the Big Brother House.

But what could pass for a five minute sketch is dragged out for an excruciating seventy minutes with few laughs.


Satire I thought was meant to be funny. At least it is in Chaplin's The Great Dictator and pretty much anything from Mel Brooks. Instead we have an earnest and unconvincing argument that we all get swept away by charisma in the end.

If the intention is to explore what does reality television do for politicians the answer from this seems to be not a lot. The programme notes Donald Trump is using reality television fame to run for President. But he is also spending a lot of his own personal fortune on doing that (and the jury is still out on how well that is going for him).

The big brother household assembled seems a bit odd as well. They look too old to be contestants. And if they are meant to spoofs of media personalities it is too unclear to be be funny. Besides, given the average age of any Big Brother winner is 25, I would have thought Hitler had no chance...

Big Brother Blitzkrieg runs at the Kings Head Theatre until 30 January.

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