Theatre review: The Frogs

Director Georgie Rankcom seems to have established a very specific niche: Revivals of Stephen Sondheim obscurities that I'd previously seen at Jermyn Street Theatre, given bigger, better productions at Southwark Playhouse that still aren't enough to rehabilitate them. After Anyone Can Whistle it's the turn of The Frogs, Sondheim (music and lyrics) and Burt Shevelove's (book) short 1974 adaptation of the Aristophanes satire, expanded to a full Broadway musical by the composer and Nathan Lane in 2004. In a setting that's simultaneously Ancient Greece and the present day, the god of wine and theatre Dionysos (Dan Buckley) enlists his slave Xanthias (Kevin McHale) to help him travel to the underworld to bring back the deceased playwright Bernard Shaw: He believes Shaw's no-nonsense brand of wisdom is the solution to a modern world he despairs at.

Theatre review: Thrill Me: The Leopold & Loeb Story

From one musical theatre extreme to another, and straight after a big, brand-new and decidedly messy show, I'm crossing the river for a compact chamber musical that's been a fringe favourite since its 2003 debut. Stephen Dolginoff's (book, music and lyrics) Thrill Me is subtitled The Leopold & Loeb Story, and follows a crime shocking even by 1920s Chicago standards. Framed by a parole hearing for Nathan Leopold (Bart Lambert), now in his fifties, he's given one last chance to shine a new light on one of the most written-about murders of the century, and convince them that one of the "Thrill Killers" is safe to go back on the streets. Leopold & Loeb famously inspired the play and film Rope which, for their time, are comparatively obvious in the homoerotic subtext to the central relationship. Writing in the 21st century, Dolginoff can all-out make it text as we go back to meet the two men aged 19.