Theatre review: The Little Big Things

Back to @sohoplace, the theatre with a name so current it's kept its tamagotchi alive for a whole two weeks, and the new West End venue's first musical. Nick Butcher (music & lyrics,) Tom Ling (lyrics) and Joe White's (book) The Little Big Things is based on the autobiography of artist Henry Fraser, who is paralysed from the shoulders down and paints using a stylus he holds in his mouth. A promising teenage rugby player, Fraser was 17 when he had an accident on holiday in Portugal with his older brothers (Jamie Chatterton and Cleve September) that saw him flown back to England and to the hospital where he spent several months. The show is narrated by two versions of Henry that talk to each other in his head: The able-bodied Henry from before the accident (Jonny Amies) and the Henry after it, in a wheelchair (Ed Larkin.)

Re-review: London Road

London Road topped my list of favourite theatre of 2011, and I was far from a lone voice: So popular was Alecky Blythe and Adam Cork's verbatim musical that the National Theatre has brought it back, moving it from the smallest auditorium to the largest as one of this year's Travelex £12 shows. Despite seeing it twice in the Cottesloe I couldn't resist one more visit in its new home, and this time brought my mum along for the ride. In 2006, in the run-up to Christmas, five prostitutes were murdered in Ipswich. Alecky Blythe, who creates her plays by editing together real-life audio interviews, went to Ipswich to speak to the residents as the events were unfolding, and then again in the subsequent couple of years to find out how they were coping with the fallout both from the killings themselves, and the media circus that came to town.