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Category: Theatre

  • Blood Brothers

      A constant interest to psychologists exploring the competing effects of nature or nurture on an individual’s personality is twins who have been separated at birth.   Given their equal nature their different upbringing provides insights into the effect of their nurture.   Willy Russell takes this theme for his musical play, Blood Brothers, but adds the… →

  • Pride and Prejudice

    “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.” Yes, as the novel opens, so does the play and therefore so must this review, as an opportunity to quote probably one of the best opening literary lines cannot be missed –… →

  • Chicago

    Chicago is one of the “big” musicals – we all know a few songs from it, and you probably know more than you think. The book is from 1975 (based on the 1926 play, which was based on contemporary court cases) and while it in many ways feels very modern there are a couple of… →

  • Little Shop of Horrors

    A man, a plan, a carnivorous plant – Little Shop of Horrors is the musical (immortalised in the 1986 film) based on a 1960 B movie that was shot on a borrowed set in two days and featured an unrehearsed young Jack Nicholson. I only dimly remember the 1986 movie, but have never seen the… →

  • The Rocky Horror Show

      Basques and fishnets, transexuality and sexual fluidity, both on stage and off. That’s what you get when you go to The Rocky Horror Show. Never has a show been so inclusive, with cast and audience united through a love of fun and demonstrative dressing. And that’s what makes The Rocky Horror Show unique and… →

  • Reviews archive

    Older review posts can be found here   Chitty Chitty Bang Bang Here’s the idea. Take a children’s story, get the Sherman brothers to write some memorable music and lyrics and then introduce some sophisticated choreography from Stephen Mear and you’ve got yourself a hit that appeals to all ages.  Well, based on the evidence… →

  • Goodnight Mister Tom

      There is a famous quotation from Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar that begins: “If you have tears, prepare to shed them now.”  Those words should be embossed on the front of the programme of Goodnight Mister Tom, David Wood’s tearjerker play adapted from Michelle Magorian’s novel and currently at Woking’s New Victoria theatre. It charts the… →