Theatre review: She Loves Me

I started 2016 with a musical about a rather niche subject; I end the year on a more old-fashioned one that isn't strictly speaking formulaic - it became the formula for several Hollywood Rom-Coms. She Loves Me has a book by Joe Masteroff, music by Jerry Bock and lyrics by Sheldon Harnick, and takes its story from Hungarian play Parfumerie, about hate turning to love in the titular shop. Georg (Mark Umbers) is the perennially single deputy store manager who's resorted to a lonely hearts column, and has fallen for a woman he's been exchanging letters with. When one of the shop clerks leaves, her replacement Amalia (Scarlett Strallen) instantly annoys him by selling a music box he'd bet would be unsellable, and their relationship is fractious from then on. Needless to say, Amalia is actually the "Dear Friend" he's been writing to, and she feels the same way about his letters.

Theatre review: Dream of Perfect Sleep

Continuing what's been something of a bleak-themed 2014 at the Finborough is a look at dementia and mortality in Kevin Kautzman's Dream of Perfect Sleep. At one time a scholar who traveled the world, Mary (Susan Tracy) is now gradually losing her mind to dementia. Her husband Gene (Martin Wimbush,) having recovered from an unspecified illness a few years back, has now had an incurable relapse. It's not Christmas, but Gene has told Mary it is, and decorated the house accordingly becuase he's invited their children to visit: Insomniac, ex-pill addict Robert (Cory English) and their adopted daughter, the hippie-ish Melissa (Lisa Caruccio Came) are coming to this pretend Christmas Eve because Gene wants to tell them about their parents' failing health, but also how they plan to deal with it: In her more lucid moments Mary has asked that she is not left alone to lose who she is.