Theatre review: Big

Where musicals in 2019 have been concerned, the smaller ones have been much more likely to strike a chord with me than the big ones so far. So how does that bode for a musical whose actual title is Big? Spoiler alert and everything, but not well. John Weidman (book,) David Shire (music) and Richard Maltby's (lyrics) musical is based on Gary Ross and Anne Spielberg's 1988 film that remains a well-loved classic and a milestone in Tom Hanks' career. This 1996 stage adaptation, on the other hand, was apparently such a financial disaster I'm surprised it's not better-known among the legendary Broadway trainwrecks like Carrie and Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark. So it's not much of a shock if it's taken this long to make it to London; more of one, though, that nobody seems to have learnt their lesson, and instead of a quiet, soon-forgotten run on the fringe we get Morgan Young's flashy production in the absolute barn that is the Dominion.

Theatre review: Road Show

After the rise of the Nazis in the first part of his two-show season at the Union, director Phil Willmott goes for something a bit lighter but not necessarily easier: Road Show is the fourth title, and who knows how many dozen rewrites and reinventions, for Sondheim and Weidman's attempt to tell the story of Addison Meisner, the turn-of-the-20th century architect whose style defined much of how Florida looks to this day. After their father dies, leaving them poorer than they expected, Addy (Howard Jenkins) and his brother Willie (Andre Rafig) seek their fortune in the Alaskan gold rush. Addy's hard work and determination sees their plot of land yield results, only for his brother to lose it in a card game. It sets a pattern: The drunk coke-head Willie is a schemer whose plans always seem to leave him penniless and take any number of other victims with him.

Theatre review: Assassins

Here's one of those shows I had huge expectations of: Assassins is my favourite Sondheim, and one of my favourite musicals full stop, but the last production of it I saw was disappointing, missing, in my opinion, most of the dark humour that gives the piece its real genius. So I was really hoping for a more successful production from Jamie Lloyd at the Menier Chocolate Factory, especially as he's assembled such an impressive cast to play nine of the people who've attempted, four of them successfully, to assassinate US Presidents. Soutra Gilmour has taken the musical's setting at a shooting gallery to give us a whole Dustbowl carnival in a traverse staging, with the seating reupholstered in lots of different colours, the words "HIT" or "MISS" lighting up after every attempt, and a bumper car in which Jamie Parker's Balladeer sits, which will eventually stand in for JFK's open-topped limo.

Theatre review: Pacific Overtures

PREVIEW DISCLAIMER: This was the second public performance.

Famous as one of Stephen Sondheim's most complex and ambitious (trans: unpopular) works, Pacific Overtures follows a turning point in the history of Japan. Having got rid of the Dutch a couple of centuries earlier, the Japanese have practically turned isolationism into a religion: Leaving the country is illegal, but worse would be for a foreigner to set foot on Japanese soil, which would be viewed as something close to sacrilege. But by 1853 preserving this sanctity is looking less and less possible, as American ships arrive, demanding to deliver a letter from the President. With the Emperor still a child, and the shōgun an incompetent, it's left to low-ranking samurai Kayama (Oli Reynolds) and English-speaking fisherman Majiro (Emanuel Alba) to try and come up with a solution.