Anthony Rapp – Without You

5 stars *****

Anthony Rapp, one of the original cast members of Rent on stage and screen gives us an excellent, poignant and humbly honest account of the early days of his career, of auditioning for Rent, its early success … Read More

Beulah

5 stars *****

Beulah – coined by William Blake as the place between this world and the next, this is storytelling, folk singing and a bit of puppetry at its very best.

Making it look easy, our two storytellers act … Read More

Aida

1 star *

The show started off ominously with an apology for the cast being only 14-17 and went downhill from there. Please, never ever apologise for something only being a ‘youth show’, there is a lot of outstanding work … Read More

The Secrets Hidden in the Beatles RockBand

2 stars **

Nothing to do with the Beatles (the title refers simply to a computer game the characters play), this is a short story essentially about sexual conquests and the relationships between two best friends and a big secret … Read More

Hey, Piano Bar Lady

4 stars ****

Slightly ditsy but always charming, Linn Lorkin regales us with her life stories of growing up and becoming a piano bar player all over the world. This is a rare glimpse into a sadly dying profession including … Read More

Towards the Moon

5 stars *****

I really like this new work by Andrew McGregor, even in this reduced version it is still nicely crafted and works well.

The music is beautiful, very apt to the story and nicely sung by all (I … Read More

The Showstoppers Family Matinee

Four Star

**** The Showstoppers are back, and this time it’s swear-free. This was the Showtoppers team’s first foray into family friendly, but I hope not their last. Using the usual Showstoppers format, the team used audience suggestions and host … Read More

Bat Boy

4 stars ****

I really wasn’t looking forward to this as how can you cut Bay Boy down to one hour? Mercifully this is the full show at two hours long – the programme and posters are in error although … Read More

Music of Les Miserables and West End Musicals

3 stars ***

This production is staged as ten people auditioning for a Les Mis casting session – so each person has a number and has to sing a song each (followed by 30 mins of Les Mis songs). Reasonable … Read More

A Little Night Music

2 stars **

Unfortunately this whole production is let down by the simple fact that you can’t hear a lot of it. It desperately needs mics and not only for the singing but for most of the dialogue too. There … Read More