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A night at the opera: That Bastard Puccini! (Park Theatre)

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It’s hard to imagine that it’s only been 130 years since Puccini first premiered La Boheme. Nowadays, it’s a revered classic, and guaranteed to be on any opera company's annual programme if it needs to stay afloat. It’s a crowd pleaser with its melodrama of poor, impoverished artists loving, starving and dying in Paris. But Puccini’s La Boheme had a less auspicious beginning, with one of his contemporaries accusing him of stealing his idea and being poorly received on its first outing. And that’s at the heart of That Bastard Puccini! Currently playing at Park Theatre , writer James Inverne uses the friendship and rivalry between the two composers, Puccini and Ruggero Leoncavallo, to weave a comic tale of creative frustration with an awful lot of facts and tidbits about the opera scene at the time. It’s part comedy, part music appreciation.  It opens with Leoncavallo (Alasdair Buchan) at home with his wife Berthe (Lisa-Anne Wood), cursing about Puccini’s latest work, which is drawn ...
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Moderately modern Milly: Seven Brides for Seven Brothers @OpenAirTheatre

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Fancy footwork and star performances from Alex Gaumond and Laura Pitt-Pullford make Regents Park Open Air Theatre’s production of Seven Brides for Seven Brothers a memorable and magical night out... Assuming it doesn’t rain... Don’t let the central premise of mountain men who kidnap women to make them their brides put you off. While it is typical battle of the sexes stuff, the women hold the upper hand throughout. Besides there are enough tuneful songs and spectacular (and at times jaw-dropping) dancing that propel the story at breathtaking speed, that there is little time to think too much about the plot.
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A bit of syncopation and history: Ragtime

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Ragtime the musical is currently playing at Regent's Park Open Air Theatre . It's an epic musical based on E.L. Doctorow's novel that charts the tale of three families against the backdrop of the change, family, immigration, racism, strikes and unrest at the turn of the last century in America. It's an exhausting and exhilarating history lesson set to the music of ragtime, a genre of music that is predominantly recognisable for its syncopated rhythms. It was popular during the period, but then eclipsed by jazz and largely forgotten until a 1970s revival . Of course it is neither the period nor the music that hits you first when you take your seats. The first shock is that the set which looks like a bomb has gone off. And for a story set in 1906 it all seems very contemporary. There is a poster from Obama's 2008 campaign proclaiming "Dare to Dream" towards the back with a gaping hole in it. In front of the hole is a pile of junk, dust and rubbish as if ha...
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Dusk in a muddy park: Babel

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Babel , billed as one of the theatrical events of 2012 (in a year that no doubt will be full of these) is currently playing at Caledonian Park in North London. It's part street theatre, part performance art, part art and craft, part singing and part muddy field. It's a lot of parts but it is a pretty ambitious piece that brings together a story of a city like London where people are from all corners of the world and representing a variety of cultures and backgrounds...
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