Concert review: Sunset Boulevard

It's a bit unusual for a famous actor not to be particularly associated with musical theatre except for one specific role, but it's certainly the case for Glenn Close But No Cigar as Norma Desmond. Sunset Boulevard is one of Dr Baron Dame Sir Andrew Lloyd Lord Webber's best shows, largely because he and lyricists Don Black and Christopher Hampton have such strong material to work with in Billy Wilder's classic film. Now it becomes the second of the Coliseum's series of semi-staged concerts (after last year's Sweeney Todd,) and Close returns to reprise Norma in the same OTT outfits she stole from her last production twenty years ago. Close may be the star turn but Michael Xavier is barely ever off the stage as Joe Gillis, the struggling Hollywood screenwriter fleeing creditors when he hides in the driveway of a Sunset Blvd mansion belonging to a former silent movie star.

Theatre review: Richard III (The Wars of the Roses at the Rose Theatre, Kingston)

I don't know if it's John Barton's edit/adaptation or Trevor Nunn's direction (probably a bit of both,) but this trilogy version of The Wars of the Roses seems to be a lot less overtly Lancastrian in sympathy than Shakespeare's four-play original. Not that it's become Yorkist instead, but both sides of the conflict come off about equal in terms of culpability for the lives lost. Richard III is by far the most frequently performed play in the tet as it's considered something of a standalone story, but it definitely benefits in a couple of ways from being seen in context, and one of these is in a titular villain who isn't quite as villainous here: Robert Sheehan's Richard spent Edward IV as the Yorkist enforcer, doing the dirty work that'll get his family into power. Once they've got it, it turns out that the biggest obstacle to keeping it is the family themselves, so he proceeds to turn on them, killing both relatives and former allies.

Theatre review: The Pajama Game

The fun side of sexual harassment in the workplace comes to the Shaftesbury Theatre as Chichester's production of The Pajama Game transfers. In what is only the first in this year's major West End musicals about an industrial dispute in a factory, Sid (Michael Xavier) joins the Sleep Tite Pajama Company as factory superintendent, where he quickly gets on the wrong side of the workers and has to deal with one of the trade union representatives, Babe (Joanna Riding.) Despite their first meeting being a clash, and despite her being named after a sheep-pig, Sid falls for Babe, and although she protests otherwise initially, the feeling is mutual because this is a musical rom-com. As soon as they have both declared their love though, a strike over the factory workers' demands for a 7.5 cent pay rise threatens to break them up.

Theatre review: Soho Cinders

PREVIEW DISCLAIMER: This review is of the penultimate preview performance.

Soho Cinders is a long-gestating project from Stiles and Drewe, the songwriters behind last year's Betty Blue Eyes and the new songs in Mary Poppins. And though musical theatre is famed for being popular with a gay audience, you can see why a show as overtly gay as this one wouldn't quite be looking at a big West End run. Instead it gets an appropriate berth as Soho Theatre, just up the road from its Old Compton Street setting. Robbie (Tom Milner) is a student whose mother died without leaving a will, leaving him at the mercy of the two stepsisters who want to get hold of the launderette that should rightfully be his to inherit. Instead Robbie has to support himself by becoming a rent boy, but he's also having a secret relationship with James Prince, a popular, engaged candidate for London mayor. (Although, how exactly it's a secret is anyone's guess; I'm sure there's less public meeting places than at the foot of the Trafalgar Square lions.)