Evita (Open Air Theatre, Regent’s Park) JohnnyFox August 9, 2019 Musicals, Reviews, Theatre At last, someone has laid the sugary ghost of Elaine Paige. Jamie Lloyd’s stripped-back Evita at the Open Air Theatre in Regent’s Park has all the metallic modernity of their Jesus Christ Superstar with...
Tree (Young Vic) JohnnyFox August 4, 2019 Musicals, Reviews, Theatre If a student disco is your personal nightmare, look away now. Tree starts and ends with a throbbing onstage party to wish the audience is 'persuasively invited'. The last time this many...
Peter Pan (Troubadour White City Theatre) JohnnyFox July 29, 2019 Musicals, Reviews, Theatre It's 60 years since I was taken by the hand to see my first Peter Pan. Margaret Lockwood, since you ask, the last year she played it before her daughter Julia took over and had her thighs chafed by...
Too Close to the Sun (Comedy [Pinter] Theatre) JohnnyFox July 21, 2019 Musicals, Reviews, Theatre Ten years after the event, people are still talking about this walking disaster. It's worth a reprint. Overnight Failure a quick-and-dirty review of 'Too Close To The Sun' - a new musical about the...
The Illusionists (Shaftesbury Theatre) JohnnyFox July 15, 2019 Cabaret, Circus, Other, Reviews, Theatre 'Family entertainment' is a bit thin on the ground in London at the moment, so I'm not being entirely dismissive of The Illusionists except to say that the only thing in the show which is 'direct from...
Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat (London Palladium) JohnnyFox July 12, 2019 Musicals, Reviews Sheridan Smith doesn’t quite bounce on stage at the top of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat shouting ‘Hiya kids, do you wanna be in my gang?’ but that’s the sole restraint that stops...
Captain Corelli’s Mandolin (Harold Pinter Theatre) JohnnyFox July 11, 2019 Reviews, Theatre It seems appropriate that Captain Corelli’s Mandolin, the 90s beach novel that launched a hundred thousand package holidays to Kefalonia should itself be staged in a lightly air-conditioned theatre that’s...
Present Laughter (Old Vic) JohnnyFox July 8, 2019 Reviews, Theatre Well I have no idea what that - PRESENT LAUGHTER - was about except an opportunity for people who don't often go to the theatre to pay up to £120 to be in the same room as Andrew Scott - the 'hot priest...
Private Lives (Mill at Sonning) JohnnyFox July 7, 2019 Reviews, Theatre Plenty of venues do pre-theatre dining, but few do it with the generosity of The Mill at Sonning. For a start, the meal is included in your £51 theatre ticket price, the food is of a surprisingly high...
Noises Off (Lyric Hammersmith) JohnnyFox July 7, 2019 Reviews In 1982, I went to the Lyric Hammersmith to see Michael Frayn’s new farce Noises Off featuring Patricia Routledge, Paul Eddington – I took my parents who were horrified to hear 'that nice actor from...