Posts

Showing posts with the label David Burt

Featured Post

Wine time: The Frogs - Southwark Playhouse

Image
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...

Songs of love war and death: Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living In Paris @CharingCrossThr

Image
The songs of Belgian singer-songwriter Jacques Brel are given a slick and lively treatment in Jacques Brel Is Alive and Well and Living in Paris, currently playing at the Charing Cross Theatre . Brel may be dead for nearly forty years, but under the direction of Andrew Keates and with a terrific cast comprising of Eve Polycarpou , Gina Beck , Daniel Boys and David Burt , Brel's complex songs are given a fresh new perspective and lease of life. Jacques Brel Is Alive and Well and Living in Paris is a musical revue that dates back to the late sixties. It was an opportunity to present to English-speaking audiences the world of Brel with translations by Mort Shurman and Eric Blau, which are considered to best capture the spirit of Brel. There is no particular story that holds the songs together; the performers move about the stage and amongst the band without saying anything. But over the course of the evening you become acquainted with Brel's song (each are complicated eno...