Theatre review: Sister Act

I've so far managed to avoid every incarnation of Sister Act The Musical that's run in London, not out of any particular animosity towards it, just because the idea's never really grabbed my interest. I was quite happy to skip the latest production as well, which was originally due to run exactly two years ago, then got postponed again last year. Due to star the source film's leading lady Whoopi Goldberg, it was a hot ticket but I was put off by the idea of the venue. Two years and two reschedules later, Goldberg was no longer available, but to be honest Beverley Knight was a bigger draw for me personally; she leads a cast of big names that include Jennifer Saunders, Keala Settle, Clive Rowe, Lesley Joseph and Lizzie Bea. Alan Menken (music,) Glenn Slater (lyrics,) Bill & Cheri Steinkellner (book) and Douglas Carter Beane's (additional material) musical moves the film's story to 1977, to give the songs disco and Motown influences.

Theatre review: Young Frankenstein

Mel Brooks' musical adaptation of his own classic film The Producers was a Broadway and West End smash hit, so it was no surprise that the same creative team would try to follow it up. But giving Young Frankenstein the same treatment resulted in an overblown flop, which is why it's taken a decade to cross the Atlantic. But in that time Brooks has continued to work on it, and although I don't have anything to compare it to the version that director/choreographer Susan Stroman has brought to London is, although problematic, hugely entertaining and crowd-pleasing. If one of the criticisms of the 2007 production was that it was too much of a big-budget juggernaut, that's been amended: Although there's a large cast with a vast amount of costume changes (designed by William Ivey Long,) Beowulf Boritt's set tends for a more old-fashioned look with curtain backdrops, and the whole show has a music-hall feel.