Posts

Showing posts with the label damian humbley

Featured Post

The greatest show and other bromances: Adam Riches and John Kearns ARE Ball and Boe @sohotheatre

Image
Alfie Boe and Michael Ball seem to be a bit of a joke act anyway. Their endless interpretations of popular songs (also known as covers) and their double-act bromance make them quintessential crossover artists where popular music meets opera and Broadway. And a perilous choice for the discerning listener. It’s not that they aren’t talented musicians and performers in their own right. Still, their musical choices are always safe, predictable and less than their potential. But every country deserves to have a pair of self-described national treasures that can tour the local arenas and give people a good time for the bargain price of £175 a seat.  And so the concept of Adam Riches and John Kearns - two world-famous from the Edinburgh Fringe comedians taking on this bromance seems like a curious choice for a Christmas musical fare. One can only hope that over the fourteen nights, it is playing at the Soho Theatre that the show evolves into something more substantial than a series of po...
Read more...

It’s not where you start: Songs for A New World @St_JamesTheatre

Image
Twenty years after it first premiered Off-Broadway, the song-cycle / revue Songs For A New World at the St James Theatre serves as a useful introduction to composer-lyricist Jason Robert Brown’s early work. It’s initially exciting to watch four accomplished performers (mostly) handle his vocally demanding work. But the effect of 90 minutes of his music straight through makes you feel as if you are trapped in a world that is a bit repetitive. It starts out spectacularly with the opening number “The New World”, a song about starting over. And then there is a song about endings, another about loss, and another about new beginnings. By the half way point, the limitations of the music become apparent.
Read more...

Revisiting in jokes and theatrical barbs: Forbidden Broadway on the West End

Image
It has another month to run, but Forbidden Broadway is a bit of a guilty pleasure. Full of in-jokes and send ups of shows on the West End (and Broadway) it is a lot of fun, but also a chance to see four actors wow us with their singing and comic abilities. The silliness becomes infectious to the point that the spoof of Once becomes so hysterically funny even the cast have trouble keeping it together. Christinia Bianco is off this week, but Laura Tebbutt is an equally funny impersonator - particularly of Kristin Chenoweth and Idina Menzel. Let it blow (a parody of the enduring song Let it Go) is a particularly evening highlight.
Read more...