Theatre review: The Stripper

Theatrical memes seem to take turns - the spoon-playing looks to have pretty much passed the baton to the elaborate coup de théâtre meme now - so it's an unexpected and unwelcome return for one from the first few months of 2016, as the St James Theatre sticks strictly to the 8pm start time for shows in its basement Studio, despite the fact that The Stripper has a two-and-a-half hour running time. Pulp novelist Carter Brown adapted one of his own stories for the book of this 1982 musical with music by Richard Hartley and lyrics by Richard O'Brien - and there are moments when The Rocky Horror Show does indeed come to mind in the songs, even though the overall style has quite a different feel, going for a jazzy influence that reflects the seedy 1960s LA club where much of the action takes place.

Theatre review: The Toxic Avenger

In what's definitely becoming something of a Southwark Playhouse specialty, it's another kitsch American musical based on an unlikely source - this time the cult 1980s Troma horror movie by Lloyd Kaufman (who was in tonight's audience and got a shout-out from the cast,) The Toxic Avenger. Tromaville, New Jersey is the world's toxic waste capital, thanks to the corrupt Mayor (Lizzii Hills) who secretly owns the company dumping mysterious green sludge everywhere. When nerdy environmental activist Melvin Ferd the Third (Mark Anderson) finds out what she's been up to, the Mayor has her goons drown him in a vat of toxic waste. But instead of killing him it transforms him into a deformed, smelly but super-strong monster, and as The Toxic Avenger - or Toxie to his girlfriend, the blind librarian Sarah (Hannah Grover) - he goes on a violent rampage to clean up Tromaville.