Theatre review: Dreamgirls

Not every Broadway hit makes a quick move to the West End but Tom Eyen and Henry Krieger's 1981 show Dreamgirls taking until 2016 to make it to London must be one of the longest delays. The film adaptation a few years ago can't have hurt it finally making the trip, as it now has an enthusiastic audience ready for it, so the vast Savoy is the venue for Casey Nicholaw's production of a story set in the 1960s and '70s, about black music making a play to break out of its "specialist" niche and into the pop mainstream. Girl group The Dreams are childhood friends Effie (Amber Riley, doing this to supplement her income because her day job as a Dream Ghost doesn't pay so well,) Deena (Liisi LaFontaine) and Lorrell (Ibinabo Jack,) who sing original songs composed by Effie's brother C.C. (Tyrone Huntley.) Shifty producer Curtis (Joe Aaron Reid) convinces them to take a job as backing singers as a stepping stone to their own career.

Re-review: In The Heights

After a sold-out run at Southwark Playhouse last year, Luke Sheppard's UK premiere of In The Heights was widely rumoured for a transfer. It's taken nearly 18 months to happen, but the timing may be fortuitous - as a London audience eagerly awaits the latest Broadway smash Hamilton to make it across the pond, Lin-Manuel Miranda's earlier show is an exciting alternative, and as the limited run has already announced an extension it seems to be doing well in its new home. That home is the King's Cross Theatre, a disused platform of the train station, converted specially to house an adaptation of The Railway Children. So the show has been restaged to suit a larger, traverse stage, but Drew McOnie's memorably energetic choreography has settled in well, with a lot of the original cast also returning.