Theatre review: Silence! The Musical

Despite Unfortunate from January remaining one of my favourite shows of this year so far, I'm generally not that enthused about the amount of parody musicals that seem to be ubiquitous at the moment. Still, I remembered enjoying Hunter Bell (book,) Jon Kaplan and Al Kaplan's (music & lyrics) Silence Exclamation Mark The Musical when it made its London debut, so figured it would be worth revisiting as Christopher Gattelli's Edinburgh Fringe production moves straight to the Turbine Theatre. Although the story comes from Thomas Harris' original novel, this musical adaptation of The Silence of the Lambs is very much a direct spoof of Jonathan Demme's Oscar-hoovering 1991 film, as it makes very clear in its opening sequence of FBI trainee Clarice Starling (Phoebe Panaretos) slow-motion jogging, before launching into an impression of Jodie Foshter's very shpeshific vocal performanshe from the movie.

Theatre review: Guys & Dolls

After successes with Julius Caesar and A Midsummer Night's Dream, Nicholas Hytner applies the Bridge Theatre's signature promenade staging to a musical for the first time. As classic Broadway musicals go, Frank Loesser (music & lyrics,) Jo Swerling and Abe Burrows' Guys & Dolls seems to be permanently ripe for revival - its last West End run was in 2015/16. Weaving together two of Damon Runyon's "Runyonland" short stories of petty crooks and gamblers in 1930s' New York, its central event is a floating craps game organised by Nathan Detroit (Daniel Mays.) With gambling illegal, a new venue has to be found every time to keep the police guessing, and the only spot available for tomorrow night's game will cost him $1000 up front.