Theatre review: Fucking Men

A big fringe hit a few years back, Joe DiPietro's Fucking Men is a take on Arthur Schnitzler's La Ronde, the controversial 1920 play about a series of one-night stands that form a circle of people who find different kinds of comfort or release in sex. I don't think DiPietro's is the only version to have ever made the leap of adapting the story for gay characters, but it seems to have been by far the most successful. Past productions have been quite luxurious in their casting, with a different actor playing each of the ten characters, but some things have changed since 2008, including fringe venues' attitudes towards actually paying actors, so for Steve Kunis' revival at Waterloo East we get a cast of four, taking two or three parts each. Alex Britt, Charlie Condou, Derek Mitchell and Stanton Plummer-Cambridge are the cast taking on a series of variously sexy, funny and sad scenes.

Stage-to-screen review: Diana the Musical

On the one hand, mere days after its release, what could I possibly have to say about Diana the Musical that hasn't already been said? On the other this is a theatre blog that, over the last 18 months, has by necessity had to diversify into a lot more on-screen theatre, and it's one hell of an elephant in the room to try and ignore: David Bryan (music and lyrics) and Joe DiPietro (book and lyrics) have collaborated on musicals before, scoring a big international success with Memphis and more of a cult hit with The Toxic Avenger. Their latest work hits some kind of cursèd sweet spot between "obvious cynical moneymaker" and "obvious terrible idea" to give the musical treatment to the life of Diana, Princess of Wales (Jeanna de Waal,) and especially her miserable marriage to Prince Charles (Roe Hartrampf.) As if what Diana's life really needed was another car crash.

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.

Theatre review: Fucking Men

The King's Head revives their biggest hit of recent years, Fucking Men, in a new production by Geoffrey Hyland. Of course if the sweary title - evidently a theme this year - isn't enough to draw the crowds in, maybe writer Joe DiPietro's higher profile, with Memphis still a hit, can only help. The inspiration is Arthur Schnitzler's much-adapted La Ronde, which follows men and women in a series of sexual encounters that eventually form a circle. DiPietro's is an all-gay millennial take on the story, each scene taking place before and after a sexual encounter between two men, one of whom will move on to the next one. So we open with the Soldier (Harper James,) who's heard of a rent-boy who hangs out by the barracks. Protesting his heterosexuality and masculinity all the time, he pays for his first blow job from a man.

Theatre review: I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change

The Arts Theatre's new studio space Upstairs has only been open a few months but already seems to have become one of the most disliked venues in London. Fortunately the weather's cooled down a bit so I didn't have to deal with the sweltering heat people were complaining about last week, but it's still a far from ideal experience: After having to queue in a busy street, blocking the entrance to a comics shop, the audience gets to fight for a front-row seat as, between the lack of a raised stage or seating rake, and the pillar in the middle of the room, the views from any other row don't look too promising. I did snag the last front-row seat, but even then the wide, shallow stage makes anything other than upstage centre hard to see. At least what's actually on that stage is worth the trip: I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change seems to get revived quite often on the fringe, but reuniting original West End Avenue Q cast members Julie Atherton and Simon Lipkin was what finally got me along to the show.

Theatre review: Memphis

PREVIEW DISCLAIMER: The papers get invited in tomorrow.

Usually when a show has a creative whose previous work had quite a healthy London run, that fact is plastered across the publicity, but funnily enough the latest feel-good, big-budget Broadway musical import doesn't say "FROM THE WRITER OF FUCKING MEN!" on the posters. Joe DiPietro provides the book for Memphis, with music by David Bryan and lyrics by both. Set throughout the 1950s, the titular city is still segregated, something that extends to the radio, with the mainstream stations playing songs by white artists, and black music restricted to specialist stations with a limited range. Killian Donnelly plays Huey (Jon Robyns alternates at certain performances*, the rest of the time getting a cheesy turn as Perry Como,) a white DJ who's gone to black clubs and churches to hear their music, and manages to get black artists played on a mainstream station.

Theatre review: The Thing About Men

Based on a 1980s German film, Joe DiPietro (book & lyrics) and Jimmy Roberts' (music) musical The Thing About Men opens with a 15-year marriage on the rocks. Busy advertising executive Tom (Peter Gerald) has cheated on his wife before, but when he realises that Lucy (Kate Graham) is doing it as well, he moves out of their home. He then spies on her until he identifies her lover, wannabe bohemian artist Sebastian (John Addison.) This being a "musical comedy affair," the next obvious thing for Tom to do is to take on the alias of "Milo" and move in with Sebastian, who's on the lookout for a new flatmate. Initially trying to sabotage Sebastian's relationship with his wife, Tom finds himself making a new friend.