Theatre review: Amélie

My final theatre trip of 2019 isn't explicitly a Christmas show - in fact it very specifically takes place in the late summer and early autumn of 1997 - but it certainly feels seasonally magical and warm-hearted. Jean-Pierre Jeunet's 2001 film Amélie was an international hit, which got away with its wilfully naïve nature with a genuinely warm and distinct brand of eccentricity. The word here is whimsy, and regular readers will both know that means I'll go into Craig Lucas (book,) Daniel Messé (music and lyrics) and Nathan Tysen's (lyrics) musical adaptation with a great deal of apprehension. Not because I don't necessarily like whimsy, but because in my experience it's incredibly hard to pull off without overdoing it. In fact, thanks to The Other Palace leaving the audience crushed in the foyer with no explanation, only opening the doors at the time the show was meant to start, and therefore inevitably starting late, Amélie had it all to do to get me on side; but it soon did with apparent effortlessness.

Theatre review: Marry Me A Little

There's no shortage of Stephen Sondheim works but there always seems to be an appetite for more; hence the 1980 show Marry Me A Little, in which Craig Lucas and Norman René compiled a number of Sondheim's songs into an hour-long revue. Some, like the title song which comes from Company, are familiar but the majority were cut from earlier drafts of his shows. They're largely either love songs or heartbreak/breakup songs so lend themselves to a vague framework of a story about a couple. There's no dialogue, and looking up the show online it seems that it's down to the individual production to decide exactly what story it's telling. So Hannah Chissick's production at the St James Theatre's downstairs Studio space makes it the story of a couple who are just in the process of breaking up.