Theatre review: Much Ado About Nothing(Jamie Lloyd Company / Theatre Royal Drury Lane)

I went on quite a bit in my review of Jamie Lloyd's Tempest about the fact that the entire production seemed to exist only to satisfy an obscure beef that His Exalted Brittanic Excellency, The Right Rev. Dr Baron Dame Sir Andrew Lloyd Lord Webber BA (Hons) MEng, QC, MD, P.I, FSB had with a dead man, and the way that was reflected in a production the director's heart didn't seem to be in. At least, whatever other reservations I might have with the second half of this Shakespeare season at Drury Lane, Lloyd's Much Ado About Nothing has the feel of a show he actually had an idea for. Another heavily edited text doesn't only lose a whole swathe of characters but also the play's military context: Soutra Gilmour's design leaves the huge stage mostly bare except for constantly-falling pink confetti, turning it into the dance floor of an 80's/90's- themed disco (although the amount of plot that's dependant on texts and people checking each other's Instagrams suggest we're in the present day.)

Theatre review: Kathy & Stella Solve a Murder!

I've listened to many podcasts since the pandemic but they've never included the true crime ones that seem to be the most popular genre out there. Still, I know how big they are and can see some of the attraction of digging into cold cases for new clues - after all the mix of morbid curiosity and trying to find sense in the senseless has always been popular in other media, why not this one? I suppose this means a musical about a true crime podcast was only a matter of time, and Jon Brittain (book & lyrics) and Matthew Floyd Jones' (music & lyrics) Kathy & Stella Solve a Murder Exclamation Mark had been a big Edinburgh fringe hit before this London transfer. Kathy (Bronté Barbé) and Stella (Rebekah Hinds) grew up at a time when the hunt for a serial killer called the Hull Decapitator was dominating the city, and this fed into a love for all things gory that turned into a lifelong friendship.

Theatre review: Sunset Blvd

I often grumble about the work of His Excellency The Rev. Dr Baron Dame Sir Andrew Lloyd Lord Webber BA (Hons) MEng, QC, MD, P.I, FSB, but have a soft spot for Sunset Boulevard - one I've never been entirely sure how much to credit to Lloyd Webber (music,) Don Black and Christopher Hampton's (book and lyrics) 1993 musical itself, and how much to my fondness for Billy Wilder's original 1950 film. Well, this should settle some of that at least, as the latest West End revival comes courtesy of director Jamie Lloyd and designer Soutra Gilmour, whose signature style inevitably strips away the usual trappings of faded Hollywood glamour so associated with film and musical alike. But their monochrome style does make for a different kind of link to the age of black and white movies. 

Theatre review: Evita

Regent's Park Open Air Theatre says they only cancel 5% of performances due to bad weather; I must be particularly unlucky then because I'm averaging 33% over the last two years. So this is my second attempt at Jamie Lloyd's take on Evita; regular readers will both know I regularly grumble about not much liking the work of The Rev. Dr Baron Dame Sir Andrew Lloyd Lord Webber BA (Hons) MEng, QC, MD, P.I, FSB, while consistently finding reasons to go and see it anyway. In this case, it's the fact that the Open Air will be trying to recreate the success of 2016's revelatory Jesus Christ Superstar, and getting Lloyd for it is something of a minor coup for the venue. Evita is ALW and Tim Rice's take on the controversial figure Eva Perón (Samantha Pauly,) First Lady of Argentina during the 1940s and seen as the power behind the throne for her populist husband Juan Perón (Ektor Rivera.)