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Bear with me: Sun Bear @ParkTheatre

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If The Light House is an uplifting tale of survival, Sarah Richardson’s Sun Bear gives a contrasting take on this. Sarah plays Katy. We’re introduced to Katy as she runs through a list of pet office peeves with her endlessly perky coworkers, particularly about coworkers stealing her pens. It’s a hilarious opening monologue that would have you wishing you had her as a coworker to help relieve you from the boredom of petty office politics.  But something is not quite right in the perfect petty office, where people work together well. And that is her. And despite her protesting that she is fine, the pet peeves and the outbursts are becoming more frequent. As the piece progresses, maybe the problem lies in a past relationship, where Katy had to be home by a particular hour, not stay out late with office colleagues and not be drunk enough not to answer his calls. Perhaps the perky office colleagues are trying to help, and perhaps Katy is trying to reach out for help. It has simple staging
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On a bad day: Darling of the Day

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It is appropriate that the Union Theatre , which has a reputation for fresh perspectives on old shows, has given Darling of the Day , a forgotten musical from the 1960s, its first European Revival. The show with music by Jule Styne ran on Broadway for only 31 performances and attempts to revive over the years have stalled. Perhaps the reason it has been ignored is that it is just not a fashionable show. The story revolves around a famous artist in Edwardian London who seizes an opportunity to assume the identity of his butler and fade away into an upper working class existence. The score isn't full of memorable songs, but with its take on old love (or rather two more mature leads who get married), the show is intriguing and mostly harmless fun.
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Curious and sweet: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time

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It was an exciting and enjoyable opening night of the West End transfer of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time  earlier this week. Not just because of the various well-known faces and fans of the cast in the audience, but this is an intelligent and emotional play that is hard to resist. While I missed its run at  The National Theatre , you are swept up in the sensitive story of a boy with behavioural problems and his impact on the family. And there is a star performance from Luke Treadaway as 15-year-old Christopher Boone, a maths genius with Asperger's Syndrome. Treadaway inhabits the character and draws out his sensitivities and his vulnerabilities. At times it is exhausting to watch. And as he is a bit of a star (alongside his twin brother ), his female fans in the audience were quite excited when he takes his shirt off. The character may be fifteen, but the demands on the role require a pretty fit actor, so be prepared for audience members enjoying the sight o
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Fragmented blood and lust: Written on Skin fires

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There was style, passion and violence going around in spades at the Royal Opera's premiere of George Benjamin's new work, Written on Skin ,  Friday evening. Directed by Katie Mitchell, it is a big lavish production where angels look down on the unfolding story based upon the old fable Le Coeur Mangé (The Eaten Heart). It is a story about a powerful protector who engages an artist to create a work to celebrate his life and in doing so awakens his submissive wife. Upon discovery of this infidelity he plots his revenge. It is a short piece of only ninety minutes with no interval, but it is perfectly formed. For an opera about despair and unlocking beauty the music is evocatively layered. There are no big arias and much wailing at times but bit by bit the music serves to build the drama and tension of the piece. By the time of the conclusion and act of revenge the production has taken you to another world of beauty and wonder.
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Another look at bathroom mind games: Mydidae

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The last time I saw Mydidae in December the full frontal nudity seemed a bit of a novelty. Now a few months later and transferred to the Trafalgar Studios , it is not the only show in the West End where the actors bare all , but they are probably still the only ones with a fully-plumbed bathroom. While the prospect of seeing actors live and vulnerable is no doubt enough to arouse the interest of the punters, it is not all cheap laughs. Innocent and amusing banter soon becomes a voyeuristic look into shattered dreams and provocations.
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Endless banter: Just another night with Lady Rizo

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Lady Rizo is making her London debut playing downstairs at the Soho Theatre and amusing and enthralling audiences with her mix of incredible vocals and offbeat humour. She tells the audience frequently that she is a chanteuse, and it is her singing rather than her comic ability which is what you should see her for. She is more mildly mischievous than funny. Her banter last Wednesday tended to get in the way of the music... Even if it involved a fascinating discussion with a lady in the front row who disclosed she raped a man at a heavy metal festival when she was sixteen, it still was very mildly risque fare.
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Musicals and random acts of bureaucracy: Glasgow Girls

Theatre Royal Stratford is often the home of raw and energetic productions. The Glasgow Girls which concludes its run here tonight keeps up this tradition. Set in a rough council block in Glasgow, it tells the story of what happens when the Home Office decides to relocate asylum seekers into the area while their applications are processed. While there might have been expected tensions between the locals and the new arrivals, five years on this didn't happen. Instead local and migrant girls bond and when their Kosovan schoolfriend disappears after a dawn raid, they lead the fight to campaign for the rights of the children of asylum seekers. The fight to see their schoolfriend returned leads them to discover the long drawn out processes that asylum seekers face and how the options for appealing decisions are limited and narrow. Any success is a based on perseverance and a legal team that can search for loopholes. The role the girls play in this is less about what they actually
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Art in a dark moist place: David Breuer-Weil's Project 4

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David Breuer-Weil from Guy Natanel on Vimeo . London-based artist David Breuer-Weil has taken over the vaults under Waterloo Station with Project 4, an evocative and thought-provoking exhibition about the world, the apocalypse and other social and political considerations. Nothing is small scale here. Everything is big. Most of his paintings are two metres high and four metres long. One giant canvas follows another and as you are drawn into the tunnels under Waterloo Station, they come together to form an impressive spectacle of colour. Interspersed amongst these is Breuer-Weil's sculptures which give the works an added dimension and physicality. Many Londoners will be familiar with his works, particularly his sculpture. Emergence (see below after the jump) was temporarily installed into Hanover Square in 2012 and Visitor has previously been seen in Golders Hill Park, Hampstead.
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New music, new voices: The Route to Happiness

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As part of the Landor Theatre 's season of new musical writing, this week it is playing The Route to Happiness by Alexander S Bermange . It is an enjoyable three-hander about life relationships and ambition in London... A sort of a boy meets girl meets another girl while trying to succeed in business without really trying story... It starts with the three characters down on their luck. The young and ambitious Marcus loses his job after getting caught out criticising his boss on social media, the ambitious but somewhat lacking in talent Trinity fails another audition, and writer Lorna who has been unlucky in love is again dumped. They all meet at a wedding and the three start up professional and personal relationships. Bermange has written for West End shows and the BBC and has a range of musical styles. Here the piece feels like a London take on shows like I Love You Because or I Love You, You're Perfect Now Change . There is no dialogue but instead the story is told thr
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Opera: Cendrillon

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Cendrillon at the Royal Opera looks great and has a great cast. Joyce DiDonato in the title role is a delight as the strong willed Cinderella. Eglise Gutiérrez as the fairy godmother looks like she would be as much at home on the stage of Priscilla Queen of the Desert as she would at Covent Garden (although she sounded a lot better of course)... She looks like she is having fun waving her wand and watching the magic unfold... Alas the opera is heavy going for a fairy tale. Part of the problem is that telling the story of Cinderella for three hours requires some memorable music and some frightfully comedy. The direction is somewhat inspired and wrestles out as much comedy as is probably possible. This includes a very wicked Ewa Podles as stepmother. But what is left is a piece that could do with some merciless editing, and perhaps removing a subplot, trimming an aria (or two) and one of the ballet sequences... That would probably make it not just family friendly, but friendly to ev
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On a clear day: The View From the Shard

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The View from The Shard opens on Friday and having caught a preview of it earlier in the month, it is worth a look... Even if it is a snowy day... And visibility is poor... There is still a gee whiz excitement about looking down from the London landmark. There is something light and delicate about The Shard that makes it intriguing and not just another tall building. The journey starts with a slightly eccentric tour of London and its people before you are shuffled into one of two lifts to take you to the thirty-third floor. You are told that it will take you at speeds of six metres a second but unlike other tall buildings in London , it is not a glass lift so there is no horror or nausea from shooting up. Perhaps it is the low lighting and video screens of soothing autumnal leaves and snow that does it, but you do not feel a thing. You then have to take another lift to the top which again has soothing music and video screens which takes you to the top. There are a few more stair
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