Theatre review: Amélie

My final theatre trip of 2019 isn't explicitly a Christmas show - in fact it very specifically takes place in the late summer and early autumn of 1997 - but it certainly feels seasonally magical and warm-hearted. Jean-Pierre Jeunet's 2001 film Amélie was an international hit, which got away with its wilfully naïve nature with a genuinely warm and distinct brand of eccentricity. The word here is whimsy, and regular readers will both know that means I'll go into Craig Lucas (book,) Daniel Messé (music and lyrics) and Nathan Tysen's (lyrics) musical adaptation with a great deal of apprehension. Not because I don't necessarily like whimsy, but because in my experience it's incredibly hard to pull off without overdoing it. In fact, thanks to The Other Palace leaving the audience crushed in the foyer with no explanation, only opening the doors at the time the show was meant to start, and therefore inevitably starting late, Amélie had it all to do to get me on side; but it soon did with apparent effortlessness.

Theatre review: The Burnt Part Boys

Not actually about a naked barbecue, The Burnt Part Boys is an American musical set in a West Virginia coal mining community in 1962. Ten years earlier a cave-in caused the death of several miners whose bodies were never recovered; the company promised that the specific area where it happened - now known as the Burnt Part - would stay closed as a tribute, but they're now going back on their word. Jake (Tintin Chris Jenkins,) whose father was one of the dead, has followed him into the job and is now among the first who'll be sent down the reopened tunnels, but when his 14-year-old brother Pete (Joseph Peacock) finds out about it he sees it as a desecration of their father's grave. Bringing along his best friend Dusty (Ryan Heenan) he steals some dynamite and tries to break into the Burnt Part.