The Stage / Reviews

High School Musical - Live on Stage!, Hammersmith Apollo, London

2008-07-07T11:14:47Z

Hammersmith Apollo, London: First it was on ice, then on tour and now the stage version of Disney Channel's internationally successful TV movie High School Musical officially arrives in London.

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Dancing On Your Grave, Bluecoat Arts Centre, Liverpool

2008-07-07T10:19:47Z

Bluecoat Arts Centre, Liverpool: By concentrating on the minutiae of movement and extenuating the detail, choreographer and director Lea Anderson has forged a reputation cast in gold. Now, with Dancing On Your Grave, she has taken that reputation and made it ever more solid, delivering a show that is richly entertaining, warm and thoughtful, with a cast that clearly enjoys everything they have been asked to do.

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The Flags, Hull Truck

2008-07-07T09:59:47Z

Hull Truck: Plays based in the Hull Truck region have featured regularly in the company's programming.

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The Music Man, Chichester Festival Theatre

2008-07-04T13:24:54Z

Chichester Festival Theatre: If ever a musical needed a stonking great star performance to justify its existence it is The Music Man. The very title offers a promise few performers are going to be able to meet.

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Festival Ballet - A Million Kisses to My Skin/Resolution/Etudes, Royal Festival Hall, London

2008-07-04T13:34:54Z

Royal Festival Hall, London: Half a century ago, the Festival Ballet - as English National Ballet was then known - premiered Harald's Lander's Etudes on the stage of the Royal Festival Hall. Seven hundred and forty-odd performances later and Etudes is back on that same stage.

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Stravinsky - The Real Deal, Birmingham Hippodrome

2008-07-04T12:54:55Z

Birmingham Hippodrome: This totally ravishing triple bill could have run in Birmingham for a fortnight. But as it was, David Bintley's inspired programme brought new life to three Stravinsky classics.

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Look Back In Anger, Jermyn Street, London

2008-07-04T12:29:55Z

Jermyn Street, London: In a bedsit in the Midlands a disaffected youth rants over the class divide to the detriment of anyone who attempts to love him.

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We Didn't Mean to go to Sea, Waterfront, Ipswich

2008-07-04T12:04:55Z

Waterfront, Ipswich: I was a Malcolm Saville boy. Arthur Ransome I missed out on until much later when I discovered his Russian Tales. So I've not read the original yarns about Roger, Titty, Susan and John, but Nick Wood has come up with a splendid adaptation of Ransome's 1937 adventure story We Didn't Mean to go to Sea, which Ivan Cutting directs with aplomb for Eastern Angles.

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Frozen, Riverside Studios, London

2008-07-04T11:24:55Z

Riverside Studios, London: This revival of Bryony Lavery's questioning, powerful play - the first since it was staged at the National in 2002 - serves as a perfect reminder of just how good a writer Lavery is at her best. Sonia Fraser's production is competent rather than revelatory, allowing the text to speak for itself.

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Torn, Arcola, London

2008-07-03T16:14:57Z

Arcola, London: The success of Femi Oguns first play lies partly with his script, with its witty, naturalistic dialogue and sharply drawn characters, but mainly with its skilled, passionate cast, who combine to energise the production, forcing it up a gear.

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Once Upon a Time at the Adelphi, Playhouse, Liverpool

2008-07-03T14:39:57Z

Playhouse, Liverpool: Like a bottle of vintage Krug, there is an awful lot of fizz with Phil Willmott's musical. The set, a revolving lobby, bedroom and roof of the once grand city centre hotel, is gloriously constructed. The many costumes are sumptuous and add enough colour and depth to make the show appear to have a cast larger than 15. The music and songs are quite catchy, with lyrics underlining the city's heritage and the dance routines straight out Busby Berkeley epics.

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Star Power, Landor Theatre, London

2008-07-03T15:39:57Z

Landor Theatre, London: The well-worn interior of the Landor pub theatre provides the perfect backdrop to Tony Sportiello's rollicking tale of a struggling London fringe company offered a lifeline by the desperate agents of a washed-up former child actor.

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Summer spectacular 2008, Spa, Scarborough

2008-07-03T14:49:57Z

Spa, Scarborough: I recently read a newspaper review in which the writer spoke of approaching the job of reviewing a summer season show with some trepidation.

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Tosca, Opera Holland Park

2008-07-03T14:29:57Z

Opera Holland Park: Stephen Barlow's new production of Puccini's popular tragedy requires a willing suspension of disbelief. Instead of the action opening in the Baroque interior of Rome's Sant'Andrea della Valle, we have its rundown façade. In the second act, Scarpia takes his supper in the same café, rather than in his palatial apartment. And, at the end, the jailed Cavaradossi is fired upon not at the Castel Sant'Angelo, but slumped inside a rusting Fiat.

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Monty Python's Spamalot, Palace, London

2008-07-03T14:19:58Z

Palace, London: The revolving portcullis at Castle Camelot has struck again, with comic actor Sanjeev Bhaskar becoming the final King Arthur of the show's London run.

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