Review – The Boy Friend, Menier Chocolate Factory

If you’re looking for a joyously silly, consciously dated piece of fluff of a musical with instantly hummable tunes with a plot flimsier than an election promise then this might just be the show you’ve been looking for.

The Boy Friend is about as far from Dear Evan Hansen as you can possibly get (chorus boys’ DEH striped T shirts aside).

Sandy Wilson produced the music, lyrics and book for this 1953 show, a pastiche of 1920’s musicals apparently, although as the show is in its seventh decade now it’s easy to miss that it was a spoof. It is so gloriously un-PC that even the colour blind casting of Amara Okereke as Polly Browne is sometimes turned on its head by a script that even seems to send that up.

Review – Evita, Regent’s Park

A jobbing actress who finds global fame and VIP status by marrying a person who holds a position of national significance?

A woman who has special interests in charitable deeds and spouting political thoughts but becomes something of a fashion icon in the process and also the target of accusations of hypocrisy?

If the opportunity had been around there’s no doubt Eva Perón would have opened an Instagram account.

Review – Mischief Movie Night, Arts Theatre

If you pick up a copy of Mischief Movie Night‘s “Special Rehearsal Edition Script” (Bloomsbury) in the Arts Theatre foyer you’ll find it’s blank.

Of course it is. This is Mischief Theatre‘s (AKA The Play That Goes Wrong team) latest foray onto the West End stage. A show starring most of TPTGW‘s original cast (Bryony Corrigan, Dave Hearn, Charlie Russell, Jonathan Sayer and the Henrys Shields and Lewis etc)  returning to their improv comedy roots in a show “starring them, directed by you!”

Review – The Twilight Zone, Almeida Theatre

You are about to enter another dimension. A dimension of not only bad sightlines and the sound of coughing and rustling sweet wrappers but of the mindless thoughts of Phil’s ramblings. It is the middle ground between success and failure, the dimension of the very first preview and the first time Phil has entered the shadowy world of theatre with only Andrew in tow for quite some time. You have crossed over into an area we call The Twilight Zone.

Some mopping up – Hot Tin/ Slaves of Solitude / Young Marx

For those kind folk (that should probably read as singular rather than plural) who have been interested enough to ask where Phil’s been, here lies the answer. Hip replacement don’t you know, beating Patti LuPone to the crutches by a matter of weeks. He feels Patti’s pain. And he’s just beginning to dip the toe on the end of his newly bionic leg back into the world of theatre that doesn’t come with a surgeon and anaesthetist.

Review – Loot, Park Theatre

We’ve been scratching our heads recently, not just each others, but our own.

When Andrew booked for this production of Joe Orton’s Loot (1965) it was because someone – we know not who –  promised that we needed to book early because it would sell out when an an all-star cast was announced.

So, we waited, and waited, and waited for names we knew and possibly loved to be announced. Nada. Names trickled out and not one we recognised, that was until Phil somehow remembered sitting next to Sinéad Matthews on the tube last year as she studied her Hedda Gabler script. Both Phil and Andrew are convinced they had read the announcement, yet we have no proof. We’ve trawled our emails but can find nothing. Did we both share the same dream one night? Spooky. Heck, our own entourage was more starry than this lot.

Review – Yerma, Young Vic

We’re very late to the Yerma table. It wowed the critics last year, won Billie Piper a slew of awards including the Big One and now returns intactus to the Young Vic for a brief sold out run with only a week to go.

So if you’ve not see it yet and don’t have a ticket you probably don’t want us to tell you it lives up to the accolades. And you probably don’t want us to tell you that Andrew emerged at the end fluttering his fan saying he couldn’t think of anything wrong with it and that it was possibly the best thing he’d seen since Jerusalem. Phil found his enthusiasm more shocking than the play’s ending. Had Andrew not noticed it was performed on a traverse stage and completely forgotten about 42nd Street?

Review – Ink, Almeida Theatre

It’s not everyday you see Christopher Timothy portrayed on stage. Or Larry Lamb come to that.

Though whilst the latter is actually the first editor of The Sun newspaper (as we know it) Mr Timothy’s connection will be remembered by those of us old enough to remember him as the voice of their TV ads.

Ink is James (This House, The Vote) Graham‘s latest foray into the world of what we call recent history. The creation of The Sun newspaper as a tabloid.

Theatrical Catch Up: From On the Town to The Mentor

It’s been a while.

Phil’s been busy having a bit of work done. At home. Not on his face. Yet.

Review – Madame Rubinstein, Park Theatre

You wait a lifetime to see Helena Rubinstein and Elizabeth Arden portrayed on stage and then you get two in a row.

Well for Andrew anyhoo. It was just over a week since he saw the musical War Paint (with Patti Lupone as HR and Christine Ebersole as EA) on the actual Broadway. What are the chances?

So this is Jez Bond‘s production of Madame Rubinstein, the almost non-singing, certainly non-dancing account by John Misto with Miriam Margolyes and Frances Barber as the the two grandes dames of cosmetics.

Review – The Ferryman, Royal Court

Having barely recovered from the 11.45pm curtain of Angels in America Part 2, Phil arrived at The Ferryman to discover a running time of 3 hours 20 minutes.

Playwrights seem to have an awful lot to say for themselves.

This is Jez Butterworth‘s latest epic. The fastest-selling play in Royal Court Theatre history apparently. A June transfer to The Gielgud was announced well ahead of any previews.

Review – An American in Paris, Dominion Theatre

In which Phil thinks he may have seen one of the best looking shows ever (and thinks he must be going soft in his old age too).

Just about filling the vast stage of the newly-refurbished Dominion Theatre, An American in Paris is based on the 1951 movie, with music and lyrics from George and Ira Gershwin respectively. It’s a big, splashy, very old-fashioned romance. If it were a stick of rock, the word “BROADWAY” would run through it.

Thankfully the two Tony-nominated New York leads, British ballerina Leanne Cope and New York City Ballet dancer Robert Fairchild have travelled with it. And travelled well. Though not at every performance. Caveat Emptor.

Review – Once in a Lifetime, Young Vic

If you’re waiting for a review of Nice Fish you’ll have a jolly long wait. Phil was away and sold his tickets to Andrew (What? Did you expect Phil to give them away?) who went with Katy. Both were underwhelmed. The best he could say about it was it was 90 minutes with no interval though even that was too much for people behind him who departed before the end. Bullet dodged.

But, with a busy theatre period ahead (5 shows in 9 days, and Andrew coming along to all but one) what were the chances of being entertained for the second of them, Once in a Lifetime, after the charms of She Loves Me ?

Review – She Loves Me, Menier Chocolate Factory

You wait for ever for a seductively old-fashioned and tuneful period musical about a shop assistant falling in love, staged handsomely on four turntables and you get two in a row. What are the chances?

Following on the heels of the winning Half A Sixpence comes the Menier’s seasonal offering She Loves Me (book by Joe Masteroff, lyrics by Sheldon Harnick, and music by Jerry Bock).

Essence It’s based on a play by Hungarian playwright Miklós László that inspired the films The Shop Around the Corner, In the Good Old Summertime and You’ve Got Mail. Tinder is yet to be invented and Amalia (Scarlett Strallen) and Georg (Mark Umbers), correspond gushingly in old-style ink (hurrah!) despite never having met, until that is, Amalia wheedles her way into a job at Maraczek’s Parfumerie in Budapest where Georg happens to work.

Review – Side Show, Southwark Playhouse

It’s a rum old world sometimes.

Two consecutive off-West End shows featuring poisonous homosexualists (Kenny Morgan, The Boys In The Band), then two in a row featuring a hostess trolley (The Red Barn, The Grinning Man). The latter a musical about a carnival attraction “freak show”. This one is too. What are the chances?

This is the 1997 Broadway flop Side Show (31 previews and 91 regular performances) which was revived and revised in 2014 only to flop again after a seven week run. Is someone trying to tell them something?