Theatre review: Beetlejuice

An on-and-off hit in New York - it's opened and closed there multiple times since its original Broadway run was scuppered by Covid - Eddie Perfect (music and lyrics,) Scott Brown and Anthony King's (book) Beetlejuice now arrives in the West End for a run that seems to predict a similar mixed level of enthusiasm: It's at the huge Prince Edward Theatre, but has been advertised as a limited year-long run. Following the broad strokes of the Tim Burton film but deviating from the plot when it suits it, the story sees Lydia Deetz (Hannah Nordberg) move into a haunted house with her father Charles (Alasdair Harvey) and his new girlfriend (officially Lydia's life coach,) Delia (Aimie Atkinson.) Still mourning her recently deceased mother and very much stuck in the "denial" stage of grief, when Lydia discovers that the previous owners are still haunting the house, it convinces her there must be a way to see her mother again.

Theatre review: A Very Naughty Christmas

Look, I don't book everything expecting it to be high art, and sometimes I'll book things with the express hope that it won't be, but you can go in with fairly low expectations and still come out disappointed. For this year's most overtly seasonal theatre visit I kept it local at Southwark Playhouse, who've imported Alex Woodward & Daniel Venz' A Very Naughty Christmas from Australia. Matthew Semple, Stephen Hirst, Emily Kristopher, Dom Woodhead, Tom Collins, Aurélie Roque and Alister Smith also have various writing, composing and creative credits on the show, and the nine of them have put their heads together to notice that a number of popular Christmas songs have some reference to Santa coming. The result is a cabaret show that mainly consists of pointing this fact out to us for a little under two hours.