Theatre review:Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812

The year's theatre starts for me, as it often seems to, at the Donald and Margot Warehouse, where Tim Sheader's first production as Artistic Director follows on from the tradition of big musicals he established in his time at the Open Air Theatre. I approached this one with a certain amount of trepidation as I've only intermittently got on with the work of off-Broadway royalty Dave Malloy's jarring musical style in the past, but Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812 has been the composer's big breakout hit, and it receives its UK premiere here with an impressive cast. Based on a subplot from War and Peace, it sees wide-eyed young aristocrat Natasha (Chumisa Dornford-May) arrive in Moscow (or MscoW, as Leslie Travers' industrial set styles it,) where the family of her fiancé Andrey lives.

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.

Theatre review: Back to the Future

A perennial contender for the title of best movie ever made, Back to the Future never seemed like an obvious candidate for a musical theatre makeover, but given its popularity it was bound to happen at some point. If it's taken this long it's because, ironically, it's proven very bad at turning up on stage on time: Originally intended to open in 2015 to coincide with the date they visit in the first sequel, the long gestation period of musicals (including a well-publicised setback when Jamie Lloyd pulled out of directing duties) meant a further five years' delay, giving it an opening of... spring 2020. That Manchester run got cut short like everything else last year, and its return skipped Manchester entirely to open straight in the West End. Only for it to close again soon after Press Night when too many cast and crew members tested positive for Covid. I wasn't sure until the last minute that I'd actually get to see the show tonight but, still with a few understudies in place, performances started again yesterday.

Theatre review: The View UpStairs

The 1973 arson that killed dozens in New Orleans’ UpStairs Lounge gay bar was the biggest terrorist attack on the LGBTQ+ community before the Pulse shooting in Orlando, but ranks as something of a forgotten chapter of queer history. I’d never heard of it before this year, but perhaps it’s fitting that in the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall riots other landmark moments are commemorated, and I’ve seen the attack referenced on stage twice this year: It formed a plot point in Gently Down the Stream, and is now the inspiration for Max Vernon’s musical The View UpStairs. In the present day, entitled influencer Wes (Tyrone Huntley) buys a burnt-out building in New Orleans’ French Quarter with the intention of gutting it and turning it into the flagship store for his new fashion line. It is, of course, the building that once house the UpStairs Lounge, and when he’s alone the ghosts of the bar’s owner Henri (Carly Mercedes Dyer) and her clientele appear.

Theatre review: Chess

Growing up in the 1980s I remember chess championships, particularly those that pitted an American grand master against a Soviet one, always seeming to be in the news, so at the time basing a blockbuster musical around a chess match didn't seem entirely like a terrible idea. But time can put perspective on a lot of things, and from a viewpoint not just of 2018 but pretty much every year since Benny Andersson, Björn Ulvaeus and Tim Rice's Chess first took to the stage it's been obvious that it is, entirely, a terrible idea. Musically, the songwriting team behind ABBA provide some predictably strong numbers, but the story is so notoriously bad that it's been constantly rewritten in a desperate attempt to make it even borderline comprehensible. This is the third production I've seen, each using a slightly different book, and this one barely uses any book at all, but after thirty-odd years of rewriting at least one thing has succeeded: In terms of the basic story beats at least, it is now borderline comprehensible.