Othellomacbeth (Lyric Hammersmith) JohnnyFox October 10, 2018 Reviews, Theatre Guest reviewer: breathless girl scout reporter Gloria Trubshaw Plays for poor theatre: in Brexit Britain, once we’re reduced to eating rats whilst clutching our blue passports, a Shakespeare...
A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Gynecologic Oncology Unit at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center of New York City (Finborough Theatre) JohnnyFox October 8, 2018 Reviews, Theatre Plays like this are a gift to writers with word count limits - here you go, that's 20% of a Londonist or 15% of an Evening Standard review completed just by copying the title. I narrowly missed seeing A...
Taj Express (Peacock Theatre) JohnnyFox October 7, 2018 Musicals, Reviews, Theatre One of the reasons I decided to leave the London Gay Men’s Chorus was that we were obliged to learn complex choreography to Jai Ho, the thumping Oscar-winning Bollywood anthem A R Rahman wrote to underscore...
People Like Us (Union Theatre) JohnnyFox October 4, 2018 Reviews, Theatre Five people sit around a suburban living room over drinks and nibbles. It could be Abigail’s Party were it not for the fact that instead of debating whether or not we like Demis Roussos, we’re discussing...
Heathers (Theatre Royal Haymarket) JohnnyFox September 12, 2018 Musicals, Reviews, Theatre Just what is the big fuss about Heathers? It’s a school-of-Legally-Blonde musical derived from a cult movie which had an enthusiastic six-week run at The Other Palace, mostly for existing fans of the Winona...
Gastronomic (Theatre Royal Norwich) JohnnyFox September 10, 2018 Reviews, Theatre Every follower of Bake Off or MasterChef knows you get half the marks for initiative and half for execution - so even thought still in development by the enterprising curious directive company - Gastronomic,...
Eugenius (The Other Palace) JohnnyFox September 7, 2018 Musicals, Reviews, Theatre I wonder if a new genre is forming in musical theatre? Let's call it 'cartoon rock' - because products like Eugenius!, Six and Knights of the Rose have little in common with the canons of Lloyd Webber, or...
Preview: The Height of the Storm (Touring: prior to Wyndham’s) JohnnyFox September 6, 2018 Reviews, Theatre There is a certain delicious irony in seeing a play about old-age and Alzheimer’s in the midst of a midweek matinee audience at Richmond Theatre. In the pub beforehand, a middle-aged woman said she’d never...
Home, I’m Darling (National Theatre: Dorfman) JohnnyFox September 6, 2018 Reviews, Theatre A few days after I heard Jemima Rooper yearn for a matchbox house in the suburbs in her perfect rendition of ‘Somewhere That’s Green’ from Little Shop of Horrors, here’s Katherine Parkinson - the...
Abigail’s Party (Queen’s Theatre Hornchurch) JohnnyFox September 3, 2018 Reviews, Theatre The role of the monstrously pretentious housewife Beverly, created by Alison Steadman in her husband Mike Leigh’s 1977 comedy Abigail’s Party is as embedded in public consciousness as Edith Evans’...