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.

Theatre review: Dogfight

Making a comparatively swift journey of two years from New York to the Elephant and Castle is another musical premiere for Southwark Playhouse. Apparently based on a River Phoenix film, although it's not one I'd ever heard of, Dogfight has a book by Peter Duchan¹ and music & lyrics by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul. It's 1963, and the "Three Bees" are a trio of marines whose friendship stems from little more than having the same initial. The night before they ship out to Vietnam they have one last blowout planned, starting with a marine tradition: The dogfight is a bet that sees them picking up women, and the winner is the one who brings the ugliest date to the party. Eddie Birdlace (Jamie Muscato) ends up at a diner, where lonely, awkward waitress Rose (Laura Jane Matthewson) seems a likely candidate.