Theatre review: Pippin

The last time I saw a production of Pippin was in 2011, just before I started this dedicated theatre blog, but my regular readers will both know that Partially Obstructed View has a long history with Stephen Schwartz and Roger O. Hirson's 1972 musical: That Menier production was so many different layers of weird* that my end-of-year review still features a category called The Pippin Memorial Award for Endearing Whatthefuckery‡. So, come December 2018, will Pippin win the award that's actually named after it? Well perhaps not, as Jonathan O'Boyle's production, first seen in Manchester, doesn't veer too wildly from the original framing device of a travelling group of mediaeval players plucking a boy out of the crowd to play the lead: Maeve Black's design is Victorian vaudeville, with old-fashioned magic tricks joining the song and dance to tell a story based, incredibly loosely, on one of Charlemagne's sons.

Theatre review: Hair

In what I doubt is the first time someone's got their genitals out for strangers under Waterloo Station, Hair has come to The Vaults, in a 50th anniversary production first seen last year in Manchester. Gerome Ragni, James Rado (book and lyrics) and Galt Macdermot's (music) hippie musical finds a natural home in these railway tunnels, and Maeve Black's design doesn't just fill the auditorium from floor to ceiling, it also extends out into the bar and surrounding areas, turning them into a chill-out zone complete with couches draped in ethnic throws and tents to have a lie-down in. Berger (Andy Coxon) is the sort-of leader of the Tribe, and sort-of narrator of the musical, which spends much of its first act introducing us to various members of the group of anti-war protesters. The focus gradually falls most onto Claude (Robert Metson,) Berger's best friend who's received his draft notice to fight in Vietnam.