Theatre review: Mrs Doubtfire

I have absolutely nothing against the increasing amount of musicals based on movies; since they began to appear a century ago musicals have been a genre that more often than not adapted existing stories. Cinema has now been around long enough that it provides a vast library of material to provide inspiration, and I've enjoyed many shows based on stories that first appeared on film. Still, it's all in what you do with it, and a show has to offer more than just a nostalgia trip for fans of the original. Wayne Kirkpatrick (music & lyrics,) Karey Kirkpatrick (book, music & lyrics) and John O'Farrell's (book) adaptation of Mrs Doubtfire doesn't have that extra reason to exist, and the ways it does expand on the film are almost weirder than the story itself. Daniel Hillard (Gabriel Vick) is a hyperactive unemployed actor and impressionist, who's more of a friend than a parent to his three kids.

Theatre review: Little Miss Sunshine

Michael Arndt, Valerie Faris and Jonathan Dayton's 2006 film Little Miss Sunshine was something of a sleeper hit despite being a downbeat comedy whose story takes some wild lurches in tone. Add the fact that it's essentially a road trip movie and it's fair to call it, at the very least, an eccentric choice for musical adaptation. James Lapine (book) and William Finn (music and lyrics) are the writers attempting it in a show that premiered in 2011, and finally comes to the UK in a production by Mehmet Ergen that starts a tour at the Arcola. Hoping to be crowned the titular junior beauty queen is 8-year-old Olive (Sophie Hartley-Booth, Lily Mae Denman or Evie Gibson,) who finds out that the girl who beat her in a local heat has been disqualified (for taking slimming pills) and she's now in the finals - with only a couple of days to make it from New Mexico to the pageant in California.

Theatre review: Promises, Promises

The description on the website threatens "a triumph of 1960s sexual work-place politics" but also promises Burt Bacharach songs, making Southwark Playhouse's latest musical revival something of a mixed prospect. Bacharach provides the music, Hal David the lyrics and Neil Simon the book for Promises, Promises, the musical adaptation of Billy Wilder film The Apartment. Chuck Baxter (Gabriel Vick) has a junior role in a huge New York insurance firm, but doesn't realise he also has a secret weapon in the form of his tiny apartment, only a couple of blocks away from the office. Numerous married executives are having affairs with young women working at the company, and they talk Chuck into letting them use his apartment for sex, in return for putting in a good word for him at work. He finally gets his promotion when the personnel director Sheldrake (Paul Robinson, not the one from Neighbours) finds out and joins the club.

Theatre review: Miss Atomic Bomb

You can avoid reviews all you like - and I try - but sometimes it's hard to miss the consensus about a show, and even before the official reviews came out earlier this week it was clear which way the wind was blowing for Miss Atomic Bomb. So saying anything about it now already feels a bit like kicking a man when he's down, but I'm afraid I won't be going against the flow: Gabriel Vick, Alex Jackson-Long and Adam Long (the latter also co-directing with choreographer Bill Deamer) have assembled an impressive cast for their musical premiere at the St James, but the actors end up looking about as confused about why they're there as the audience do. Lou Lubowitz (Simon Lipkin) is a 1950s Las Vegas hotel manager working for a gangster (David Birrell,) albeit a gangster who doesn't actually seem to have any illegal business beyond running a hotel in an unnecessarily aggressive way.

Theatre review: Flowers of the Forest

Both written and set in 1934, as the consequences of Hitler's ascent started to become apparent, John Van Druten's pacifist drama Flowers of the Forest looks with some concern at the increasing possibility of a Second World War, by looking back to the First. Naomi (Sophie Ward) lives in London with her well-off husband Lewis (Mark Straker,) their lives largely revolving around books and art. Many of their generation still hold onto the romanticised view of World War I as a noble sacrifice, but the couple are among those who view it as a pointless and ruthless waste of life. So when Lewis' secretary Beryl (Victoria Rigby) reveals her boyfriend contributed to a new book exposing the horrors of the front, he's invited to meet them. Leonard's (Max Wilson) enthusiasm for his subject, as well as some papers from her recently-deceased father's house, set Naomi off remembering her relationship with a doomed war poet, and the play's middle act flashes back to her childhood home in 1914 and 1916.