Theatre review: bare

Though under threat of closure the Union Theatre ploughs on with another musical, this time the European premiere of Jon Hartmere and Damon Intrabartolo's 2000 show bare. Billed as "the rock musical," it's a coming out story set in a US Catholic boarding school where Jason (Ross William Wild) is the most popular boy. He's also having a secret relationship with his roommate Peter (Michael Vinsen, built in a Matt Damon-making factory.) Jason is happy to keep things as they are, worried not just about the reaction at school to him being gay, but also that the news might turn his father violent. Peter, however, is edging slowly out of the closet and wants his boyfriend to come with him. Their conflicting emotions play out during rehearsals for the school production of (inevitably) Romeo and Juliet.

Theatre review: Steel Pier

Another lesser-known Kander and Ebb musical gets revived, this time at  the Union. It's now the turn of the 1997 Broadway flop Steel Pier, and in one of those weird bits of theatrical synchronicity it's the second show in as many months about 1930s dance marathons. This is a somewhat less nightmarish vision of the Depression-era endurance phenomenon than Dead On Her Feet but it still features a group of desperate young people dancing to the tune of a ruthless promoter who's probably out to rip them off anyway. Former stunt pilot Bill Kelly (Jay Rincon) turns up at Atlantic City's Steel Pier for a dance marathon run by Mick Hamilton (Ian Knauer.) He meets ageing starlet Rita Racine (Sarah Galbraith) whose dance partner hasn't shown up, and convinces her to team up with him instead. But Bill doesn't know that Rita is secretly married to Mick, and is essentially a ringer whose husband will rig things to make sure she wins.