London Theatre Reviews

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, review of Harry Potter play at London's Palace Theatre

Just as Hamilton has been all-pervasive on Broadway since it opened there last summer, there's been little talk of anything but Harry Potter's official stage debut over here since the first announcement was made revealing that it was on its way over a year ago. (There was previously a small two-man fringe show called Potted Potter that raced through all the books to date in 70 minutes that transferred from the Trafalgar Studios small house to the Garrick where it was Olivier nominated in 2012,...

Aladdin, review of Disney's new musical at the Prince Edward Theatre

Here's a show which gives a lot of bang for your bucks, in every way.Disney have set themselves an extremely high bar: their stage version of The Lion King -- which next year marks its 20th birthday on Broadway -- is still consistently the highest grossing of any show in New York, and in 2014 set the record for the top-grossing entertainment in any genre or medium of all time, having earned $6.2 billion worldwide. Their animated musical film version of Aladdin, premiered in 1992, was the most...

The Mousetrap Review

Agatha Christie's 'The Mousetrap', opened in the West End on the 25th November 1952, which means it has been running for over 50 years making it the world's longest running play - an incredible achievement for any play and one that the producers are rightly proud of. In the course of the first 50 years, according to the programme notes, over 10 million people have seen the show and over 395 tons of ice cream have been sold!So what is the show's success? Part of it has to do with the fame of...

Review - 'Jeeves and Wooster Perfect Nonsense' at the Duke of York's

NOTE: Cast changed since this reviewPG Wodehouse's most famous non-theatrical creation Jeeves has, of course, been in the West End before -- as a one-man show in 1980 by Edward Duke called Jeeves Takes Charge, and as a notorious Andrew Lloyd Webber and Alan Ayckbourn flop musical five years before that (called simply Jeeves) that returned more successfully to the Duke of York's in 1996, by then re-titled By Jeeves. Now the Duke of York's is home again for a new stage play called Perfect...

That Face

Writer Polly Stenham was just 19 when she wrote this, her first play. Having had it's premiere at the Royal Court and garnered a number of awards, it's now moved up to the West End. It's success is well-deserved because there's a freshness in the writing and the humour as well as the plot.Polly Stenham brings us the world of a dysfunctional family where roles are never clear-cut or as one would expect them to be. Children act like parents, and parents ignore their responsibilities, acting more...

Les Miserables (25th Anniversary touring production at Barbican)

This year sees the silver jubilee of one of the most successful musicals ever - 'Les Misérables'. It's almost beyond imagination to conceive of a musical lasting a staggering 25 years in one city (London) and touring and playing in dozens of other cities all over the world. But such is the phenomenal success of 'Les Misérables'. To celebrate its anniversary, a new touring production of the show has landed at its original home, The Barbican, and so we now have the unique situation of 2 versions...

Les Miserables review at the Queen's Theatre

Les Misérables is a monolith of a musical that at 30 years young shows no signs of slowing down. Even on a Wednesday matinee three decades after opening in London the show received unadulterated concentration from a full house, along with a standing ovation. Part of the joy and the energy comes from the sheer commitment and devotion shown by the cast, who walk the familiar territory as though they're doing it for the very first time. With the highly successful film adaptation making the story...

The Book of Mormon London Review

Note: Cast has changed since this reviewIf you follow proceedings in the entertainment arena, you may well know as much if not far more than I do about this much-anticipated show. 'The Book of Mormon' has already been in residence on Broadway for the past two years, where it has been a huge success, and advance publicity for the show means there can't be many people in the UK who do not know about it already.Given the descriptive nature of the title, it is pretty clear that the show is about the...

Romeo and Juliet Review Shakespeare's Globe 2004

Launching what Shakespeare's Globe romantically calls its 'season of star-crossed lovers' is the tragedy most oft associated with this phrase, Romeo and Juliet. Its perennial popularity as a set text is attested by the enthusiastic hordes attending on a wet spring evening, the dismal weather failing to dampen their infectious good humour; an energy the cast heartily imbibed, demonstrating just why the Globe has such singular appeal with its special, symbiotic relationship between actors and...

Romeo and Juliet - The Musical

'Romeo and Juliet' is one of the most famous and tragic of the Bard's plays. A love affair that is doomed to end in tragedy due to the hostilities between the lover's families. Turning Shakespeare's script into a romantic musical with mass appeal seems an impossible task, and indeed it apparently is, which is why this musical does not attempt to do so. The book written by David Freeman and Don Black, for all intents and purposes ignores Shakespeare's text, and has merely borrowed the plot and...