Theatre review: End of the Rainbow

My mum remembers being about 20 and watching Judy Garland on Sunday Night at the London Palladium, promoting a series of London concerts that would turn out to be her last, and seeming... not entirely at her best. She was also a fan of Jinkx Monsoon's appearances on Drag Race, so when Monsoon was announced as playing Garland in a revival of Peter Quilter's End of the Rainbow, dealing with just that period of her life, this year's birthday present was easily decided. Judy arrives at the suite of the Ritz that will be her home for the next six weeks of concerts, in full diva mode grumbling to her new young fiancé and manager Mickey Deans (Jacob Dudman) that it's not as big as she demanded. Soon she has bigger things to worry about though, as she's attempting, at Mickey's request, to stay off the cocktail of drugs and drink that's been alternately waking her up and sending her to sleep since she was a child star.

Theatre review: 4000 Days

Peter Quilter's 4000 Days opens with Michael (Alistair McGowan) in a coma, following a blood clot on the brain. He spends three weeks unconscious, but when he wakes up he's lost more time than that: The action takes place in the present day but he thinks it's 2005, having forgotten the last 11 years. The most obvious loss is his entire relationship with his boyfriend - he only met Paul (Daniel Weyman) ten years ago, so when Michael wakes up he's a stranger. Following the doctors' advice, Paul tries to help his partner slowly get to grips with the missing decade, but Michael's mother Carol (Maggie Ollerenshaw) sees this as an opportunity to wipe the slate clean and start again: She never liked Paul, whose relationship with her son was always rocky, and she intends to take full advantage of the fact that he's been erased from his memory. The two end up in a tug-of-war over Michael's affections and memories.