Paul in London

Christina Bianco has concluded a short run at the Hippodrome Casino. An expert at mimicking any female singer she is now off to the West End transfer of Forbidden Broadway , but the highlight of her show was when she got a chance to just sing and be herself, or use the material from Forbidden Broadway (which was funnier). Bianco has become a bit on Youtube with her singing songs in the style of other performers. She has a great set of pipes too. She just needs a show that she can make her own. Here's hoping that comes soon for her. In the meantime future cabaret performances would feel more substantial with more jazz and less mimicry.

Billed as the Dame Edna farewell show, in Eat Pray Laugh , Barry Humphries is presenting to London audiences (potentially) the last time to see his iconic characters. Watching him perform live is to see an old comic master at work. Quick fire comments fly by and jokes (no matter how old or recycled from previous shows) still manage to seem funny. But at three hours it is an overlong show that will have you thankful retirement beckons for these characters... Even if you admire his stamina for persevering through this marathon of a show. The first character we are introduced to is Sir Les Patterson . Sir Les is meant to be offensive and he does this by having a large erection protrude through his shorts, constant spitting when he speaks and an endless stream of fart jokes. The spitting from speaking rains down on the first few rows of the audience (particularly at members of the audience in the front who don't find the act particularly funny). If you are in the spit rows, you are...

Yes, Prime Minister is back in the West End at Trafalgar Studios following two successful previous runs in the West End and a tour. It is probably good timing in the lead up to the Olympics as no doubt it will appeal to people with a spare night amongst all the other cultural offerings on at present and who have been inspired from walking up Whitehall past all the impressive Civil Service offices to pop on in...  The original television series was a quintessential satire from the 1980s and ran from 1980 to 1984 as Yes, Minister, and then 1986 to 1988 as Yes, Prime Minister. It was purportedly one of Margaret Thatcher's favourite shows . So anyone keen to wonder what writers Antony Jay and Jonathan Lynn would make of the modern political environment of spin, coalitions, European rules and global recession the answer is here. Sir Humphrey Appleby and Jim Hacker now find themselves dealing with a loan scandal involving illegal workers and sexual favours against a backdrop of glo...

Doctor in the House has been doing the rounds of major centres this year and is playing at Richmond Theatre this week. Comedian and I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here winner Joe Pasquale plays the lead but he does not quite get the opportunity to let rip as much as you think you think he could or would like to. It's less laugh out loud and more smirk occasionally. Very occasionally. The material has been reworked from its source material and it seems to be missing any sense of bawdiness and adventure that could have made this a bit more fun. Pasquale describes in the above clip that the show will make you come out of the theatre feeling like you had a little hot water bottle down your pants. Well there was a warm feeling in the theatre but it could have been due to the ambient temperatures outside. The cast try their best with the material they have, the set is lovely albeit a bit static since its the same awful med student accommodation in every scene (think Ladykillers of...

Funny Peculiar playing this week at Richmond Theatre is probably the most perplexing production to be seen on a stage since Too Close To the Sun (it was a short-lived musical about Ernest Hemingway's suicide). The plot revolves around a small time grocer with a wife and a baby who is desperate for sex.  Mike Stott's  play was probably daring for putting fellatio on stage in 1973 and the shock of the original production was no doubt a distraction. Fast forward forty years and it really looks like a series of stock comedy scenarios straining for laughs. It lacks timing or purpose, and with its one dimensional characters comes across as just a little bit creepy. It's not unwatchable but perplexing to think why it is on stage at all. The cast are gorgeous though and as the show plods along you feel real pity for the material they have to work with. And at times you fear they are going to injure themselves trying to get some laughs. Even Craig Gazey's flaccid penis i...

Thanks to the nimble efforts of @FerozeIyer , I found myself with a ticket to Abigail's Party , the latest sell-out show at the Menier Chocolate Factory . We went for the full Abigail experience which included '70s themed dining while being entertained by people queueing for returns in desperation to get a ticket. While the amusing menu served as a reminder why heart disease features prominently in this piece, I suspect the joke was on us for eating it. It is a wonderful production of Mike Leigh's play with and excellent cast. The star of the show is really the authentic recreation of suburbia 1970s, which for both Feroze and I brought back happy memories of our childhood - complete with leather look lounges. The cast which includes Jill Halfpenny as party host extraordinaire Beverly and Joe Absolom as Tony. The story is fairly straight forward. They drink, they smoke, they drink, they argue. They drink some more, smoke some more and argue more. What its all about ...

The King's Speech was originally intended to be a play rather than a film, and it you now have the opportunity in London to see it that way. It is a smart looking production with an excellent cast that keep things in focus. The performances by Charles Edwards as the King and Jonathan Hyde as Lionel Logue are central to this and you are on the edge of your seat whenever they are on stage. Despite projections and visuals which make the piece still feel a bit cinematic, it is the dialogue and the banter between the two men that are key. On one level, the play elaborates and enhances some aspects of the story going beyond what the film covers. But on another level it is also labours them. The film seemed sharper and more credible. It is a pity that perhaps the stage version didn't re-imagine the story as a three-hander between George VI, Elizabeth and Lionel Logue. The focus of the stories blurs with the cast of supporting (and possibly) superfluous characters.Winston Churchill, t...

Wednesday night I was fortunate enough to see the first preview of The Pitchfork Disney at the Arcola Theatre in Dalston. It is a mildly unnerving post-apocalyptic tale of dreams, nightmares, chocolate and things that bug you... Nothing is quite what it seems in this play. And through a series of monologues, there are laughs and shocks. It is hard to talk too much about the play without giving it away. But it is a showcase for some very talented actors. Chris New - who was in the well-received movie Weekend - gives an intense performance as Presley. He is great to watch along with co-star Nathan Stewart-Jarrett (pictured) as Cosmo Disney. Both manage to make their crazy roles believable and interesting in as much as that is possible. Rounding out the cast is Mariah Gale and Steve Guadino... Philip Ridley's play celebrates its 21st anniversary this year. While it may not be as shocking to audiences now as it was then. It does have a certain unnerving quality that remains...

The Passenger which is having its UK premiere at the ENO's Coliseum, is a lavish production with a great cast. It is a pity that the music does not live up to the standards of production. By interval I found it to be hard going with little reward from the Shostakovitch-like score. However upon heading to the bar for interval drinks I found myself listening to an elderly gentleman also heading to the bar who thought it was brilliant and compared it to Shakespeare. Or Shakespeare with a lot of clanging... Following that brief discussion, it seemed like it would be too easy to leave and not come back for the second half. So @Johnnyfoxlondon and I returned to the general area of our seats. The lady next to me in the first half who was texting on her phone throughout and laughing at rather serious parts of the piece had not returned so we had room to spread out. Fortunately in the second half, the music and story is much stronger. There are also a surprising blend of styles includi...

It took me a while to work out why a man in a Spiderman suit kept appearing on stage for a show about songs from flop shows. I was somewhat distracted by the low turnout on Thursday evening to see Blink Again at Above The Stag  to think too much further. Maybe it was the weather or maybe it just wasn't gay enough show for the venue. But the cast were energetic and the irony of the lack of a big audience didn't seem lost on them. The show was a compilation of some great (and some not so great) songs from shows that perhaps did not put them in their best light. This includes songs such as "A Boy from Nowhere" from Matador and China Doll from Marguerite. In the second half things liven up even more with a spirited re-enactment of scenes from the Umbrellas of Cherbourg. There is also a number from Tarzan where the actor stripped down to a rather skimpy loincloth and sang a rather vulnerable song... The show runs until 3 July and notwithstanding the occasional under...

Matthew Morrison somewhat exploded onto the stage last night at the Hammersmith Apollo. Well there was a lot of bass noise anyway. In fact, it was hard to pass any judgement on the show given the bass drowned out his vocals most of the evening. The ladies shouting for him to get his shirt off seemed more audible. The technical problems were not just with the base but also with late pick ups, cameras in the way, projections running on a laptop that was low on batteries. Still, Matthew Morrison couldn't be accused of being low on batteries however as he sang / danced / bounced on stage for almost two hours. It was a great performance and Morrison is a very likeable performer. Highlights included a medley of songs from West Side Story accompanied by bongos, which thankfully someone recorded and sent to Perez Hilton (above). There were also a number of tracks both from Glee and his new album Summer Rain  that were a treat, including Somewhere Over the Rainbow. The show las...

It is always good fun introducing non-Australians to the background of the country with the rock, the opera house and the reef . Before a few of us settled in to watch the final performance of The Sapphires at the Barbican I explained that in 1967 there was a referendum where the people of Australia agreed to give the federal government power to formulate laws over Aboriginal people. Previously they were excluded from things such as the census, and the constitution did not allow for the federal government to make laws specifically for Aboriginal people. Surprisingly the programme notes of the show get it wrong and incorrectly refer this to full citizenship rights, but I guess the above description is a bit long-winded and its arguable the referendum was also seen as a symbolic gesture which led eventually led to greater rights. Against this backdrop is the story of The Sapphires and inspired by writer Tony Briggs's mother and her cousins, who toured Vietnam in 1968 to perfo...

Amongst the gin and tonics and the noise we pass judgement on Tuesday night's performance... Listen! via AudioBoo Posted via web from paulinlondon's posterous

Not content to see one old musical this week directed by Thom Southerland , there was another of his productions to see, the final performance of Call Me Madam at Upstairs at the Gatehouse . It was a matinee, which normally would not be the smartest things to attend... Too many old ladies shoving you aside with their walking sticks to get to the unreserved seating first... And too hot... And the barbecue summer that had been called off was back on again ... But after fighting through the old ladies and battling the heat, there was a definite preference for the gay men in the audience to sit to the right hand side of the stage. This became apparent shortly into the first act... Not because it was close to the air conditioning, but because one of the cast members was dancing and wiggling about in his trousers. And his trousers had a 12-inch fly. It seemed to have hypnotic effect on a section of the audience and continued throughout the performance. One wiggle derived at least three titte...