Theatre review: Pride

Twelve years after the film shone an overdue light on the relationship between the LGBTQ+ and mining communities that were equally targeted by Margaret Thatcher's Britain, director Matthew Warchus reunites with original screenwriter Stephen Beresford, who provides the book and lyrics, plus composers Christopher Nightingale, Josh Cohen and DJ Walde to stage Pride the musical. In 1984, young gay activist Mark Ashton (Jhon Lumsden) is looking for a way to mobilise his and his friends' Pride protests into something that has a wider effect, and lands on the idea of joining forces with another group that are struggling to have their voices heard: The coal miners' unions are on strike and being demonised in the press as "the enemy within," while the small town communities they support are feeling the financial strain.

Theatre review: Groundhog Day

Honestly, I feel like I've been here before...

The Old Vic premiered Danny Rubin (book) and Tim Minchin's (music & lyrics) Groundhog Day in 2016, and the musical adaptation of the beloved 1993 film was a hit with critics and audiences, which we expected to see make a fairly quick transfer to the West End. Instead the producers decided to take it to Broadway first, where it hoped to replicate the success of its original limited run. Things didn't quite pan out that way - a troubled and accident-prone run fizzled out, and the show lost its momentum. Seven years later Matthew Warchus' original production returns to the stage where it began life, with original star Andy Karl coming back to the lead role of weatherman Phil Connors, and the same warm reception it got the first time.

Theatre review: The Burnt Part Boys

Not actually about a naked barbecue, The Burnt Part Boys is an American musical set in a West Virginia coal mining community in 1962. Ten years earlier a cave-in caused the death of several miners whose bodies were never recovered; the company promised that the specific area where it happened - now known as the Burnt Part - would stay closed as a tribute, but they're now going back on their word. Jake (Tintin Chris Jenkins,) whose father was one of the dead, has followed him into the job and is now among the first who'll be sent down the reopened tunnels, but when his 14-year-old brother Pete (Joseph Peacock) finds out about it he sees it as a desecration of their father's grave. Bringing along his best friend Dusty (Ryan Heenan) he steals some dynamite and tries to break into the Burnt Part.