Theatre review: Sister Act

I've so far managed to avoid every incarnation of Sister Act The Musical that's run in London, not out of any particular animosity towards it, just because the idea's never really grabbed my interest. I was quite happy to skip the latest production as well, which was originally due to run exactly two years ago, then got postponed again last year. Due to star the source film's leading lady Whoopi Goldberg, it was a hot ticket but I was put off by the idea of the venue. Two years and two reschedules later, Goldberg was no longer available, but to be honest Beverley Knight was a bigger draw for me personally; she leads a cast of big names that include Jennifer Saunders, Keala Settle, Clive Rowe, Lesley Joseph and Lizzie Bea. Alan Menken (music,) Glenn Slater (lyrics,) Bill & Cheri Steinkellner (book) and Douglas Carter Beane's (additional material) musical moves the film's story to 1977, to give the songs disco and Motown influences.

Theatre review: Blues in the Night

Sheldon Epps’ revue Blues in the Night first appeared off-Broadway in 1980, and it’s probably no coincidence that that’s a couple of years after Ain’t Misbehavin’, which has also recently been revived in London. Before the concept of the jukebox musical came along to build a narrative around existing songs, both of these shows presented a much more loosely-connected collection of hit songs of the 1920s and ‘30s; although unlike the earlier show, Blues in the Night doesn’t theme itself around one specific composer or performer (although songwriter Bessie Smith seems to be represented more than most.) Instead it dips into a variety of jazz and blues standards and gives them to three women and a man in a dingy hotel/bar in the wee small hours of a hot Southern night. The title suggests this could be quite a downbeat evening but while a lot of the songs deal with trying to cope during the Great Depression, as well as with the ubiquitous musical theme of personal heartbreak, most of the time we’re in for a much more upbeat, defiant and sexy mood.

Theatre review: The Light Princess

A lot of long-awaited projects have been finally making their way to the stage at the National this year; after the Lester/Kinnear/Hytner Othello and before the SRB/Mendes Lear, comes Tori Amos' debut as a composer of musical theatre. With Samuel Adamson she's adapted The Light Princess from a fairytale by George MacDonald. Two warring kingdoms separated by a dangerous forest, Lagobel is rich in gold but plagued by drought, a problem that, as its name suggests, Sealand doesn't have. When Princess Althea of Lagobel (Rosalie Craig) loses her mother, she deals with it by becoming unable to find anything serious again, her lightness of spirit manifesting itself literally as she starts to float. When the same thing happens to Prince Digby of Sealand (Nick Hendrix) he goes the other way and becomes a humourless warrior. When the nations' animosity finally breaks out into war, the two are pitted against each other but, of course, opposites attract.

Theatre review: The Hothouse

I thought part of the idea behind Jamie Lloyd's Trafalgar Transformed season was that there'd be a different configuration for every production? Perhaps I was misinformed, as the second show in the season is again in traverse, in a similar set-up to the one used for Macbeth.

This second show is The Hothouse, a Harold Pinter play but not one that's remotely typical of his work. It's not quite a black comedy, not really a farce and doesn't reach the depths of subtlety that many of his plays do, but it is entertaining, in a twisted way. Roote (Simon Russell Beale) runs a nameless mental institution, assisted by the ruthlessly efficient (or just ruthless) Gibbs (John Simm.) It's Christmas Day but any festive cheer is dulled by the death of one patient, and the fact that another has given birth to the child of a staff member. Most of the staff seem to have an idea of the father's identity, so the hunt is on for a scapegoat - the junior Lamb (Harry Melling) fits the bill.

Theatre review: Kiss Me Kate

My patience for the books of musicals is less than legendary, but I've mostly learned to deal with their lackadaisical approach to storytelling by just trying to ignore it in the hope that it'll go away. It doesn't always work though, and despite going in quite optimistic after hearing raves from various sources including my sister, my first experience of Cole Porter's classic musical Kiss Me Kate was a frustrating one. Actor/director Fred Graham (Alex Bourne) is staging a musical version of The Taming of the Shrew with himself as Petruchio opposite his ex-wife Lilli Vannessi (Hannah Waddingham) as Katherina. She still holds a torch for him despite her engagement to a general with political aspirations (Mark Heenehan) and when she discovers the flowers she thought were for her were actually meant for the show's Bianca, Lois (Holly Dale Spencer,) her real anger spills over into the show and derails the performance.