Theatre review: From Here To Eternity

When Stuart Brayson (music) Tim Rice (lyrics) and Bill Oakes' (book) musical adaptation of From Here To Eternity debuted in the West End in 2013, I found it hard work, but the songs from Brayson were a highlight, and have stayed on my playlists since. So on balance I decided to give it another go in its off-West End return at Charing Cross Theatre, where it gets a smaller-scale production from Brett Smock. And while it still feels like adapting James Jones' novel and the classic film for the stage was an idea flawed from its conception, this more streamlined take on the show (it's a revised script with a number of songs moved, removed or replaced with new ones entirely - the balance of book to music was one of my issues with the original) is a definite improvement. The action takes place in Hawaii in the fortnight before the 1941 Pearl Harbor attack.

Theatre review: My Night With Reg

If established theatres were hit hard by lockdown, how bad must it have been for new venues that hadn't had a chance to build up an audience base or cash reserves? The much-trumpeted, shiny new Boulevard Theatre seems, according to its website, to have permanently shuttered after barely getting a chance to open, but across the river at Battersea Power Station Paul Taylor-Mills' Turbine Theatre is back up and running, reopening with a fairly safe bet: Despite its underlying bleakness, Kevin Elyot's My Night With Reg has been consistently popular with audiences: Both its 1990s debut at the Royal Court and the 2010s revival at the Donmar Warehouse got West End transfers. The only question is, was seven years (it feels a lot less) since last seeing the play too soon for me to revisit it?

Theatre review: John Ferguson

In one of the Northern Irish mini-seasons they occasionally have, the Finborough Theatre are staging a pair of neglected Ulster plays. First up is the main feature, John Ferguson, dating from the early 20th century but set in the 1880s, in a failing farm near a small town. John Ferguson (Ciaran McIntyre) is getting old and sick, and has had to ask his son Andrew (Alan Turkington) to drop his plans to become a minister, in order to help him tend the land. This isn't going to be enough though, and the family is about to default on the mortgage. A possible solution comes from the well-off but weak-willed grocer Jimmy (Paul Reid,) who offers to pay off the farm's debts if John's daughter Hannah (Zoe Rainey) marries him. Hannah dithers over whether to enter a loveless marriage to save the family farm, and as she changes her mind events take a violent turn.