Theatre review: Yeast Nation (the triumph of life)

There must be something about Southwark Playhouse that inspires Benji Sperring towards the colour green: The director's last show in the Large was The Toxic Avenger, and now from a green lead we move on to an entirely green cast. Urinetown creators Mark Hollman (music & lyrics) and Greg Kotis (book & lyrics) have come up with an even more surreal theme for a musical than public toilets, by going back to the year 3,000,458,000 BCE and the first single-cell yeast organisms that could be considered life on Earth. Yeast Nation (the triumph of life) has recently been selling itself as "London's most controversial musical," which isn't quite accurate as the term has to be "divisive" - many of the official reviews seem to have completely panned it, and based on the turnout even on a Friday night that seems to have affected ticket sales. But, appropriately enough, the yeast-based substance it's most turned out to resemble is Marmite, because among those who made the trip many have loved it.

Theatre review: The Clockmaker's Daughter

Even with huge commercial musicals there's not always a guarantee you'll get a cast recording, so the odds are stacked against one turning up for a fringe show, no matter how ambitious. This unlikelihood is one that I was already feeling sad about within a few songs of The Clockmaker's Daughter, as among the many things right with Michael Webborn and Daniel Finn's new musical are songs I'd happily stick on my iPod. Set in the fictional Irish town of Spindlewood, it's an original story but with echoes of everything from traditional fairytales to more modern ones like Edward Scissorhands, as clockmaker Abraham (Lawrence Carmichael) mourns the death of his wife and decides to deal with the grief by building a replacement: Constance (Jennifer Harding) is a clockwork girl who magically comes to life, but although she does love her creator, as the title suggests it's as a father figure, not a lover. Frustrated, he forbids her from ever leaving the house.

Theatre review: Meet Me In St Louis

A 1944 Judy Garland film a couple of whose songs became enduring standards, the 1989 stage adaptation evidently didn't become quite as iconic, as it's only getting its UK premiere 26 years later. I'm not huge on old-fashioned musicals but Robert McWhir at the Landor has a good track record with them so Meet Me In St Louis was a good bet for a bit of a break over Christmas. Apparently based on a number of short stories, it's evident in the rather vague storyline that follows the Smith family of St Louis over the year 1903, as they anticipate the World's Fair opening in their town the following year. Along the way the two eldest daughters fall in love, and as Christmas approaches they face the possibility of having to leave the place they were born as their father plans to move the family to New York.

Theatre review: [title of show]

A musical so self-referential it occasionally threatens to swallow itself, [title of show] chronicles its own creation. Songwriter Jeff Bowen (Simon Bailey) and book writer Hunter Bell (Scott Garnham) get wind of a musical theatre festival with only three weeks before the deadline. Without a story to hang a whole new musical onto, they decide to write about the process of writing, turning their frustrated conversations and workshops into the script and songs. Bringing in actresses Heidi (Sophia Ragavelas) and Susan (Sarah Galbraith) they end up with a quirky show that's a hit at the festival and gets a much-loved off-Broadway transfer. But this level of success leads Hunter to set his sights on a Broadway run, and the long process of trying to get the show ready for a wider audience puts a strain on the quartet's friendships.