Theatre review: Ride The Cyclone

When you turn up to a musical you hadn't heard of before to find the audience already made up largely of people in cosplay and merch, it's a sure sign the words "cult hit" are going to feature; apparently in the case of Jacob Richmond and Brooke Maxwell's (book, music and lyrics) 2009 musical Ride The Cyclone, "viral TikTok sensation" are in there somewhere as well. Front of House at Southwark Playhouse Elephant has been decked out with distorting mirrors, a ring toss and other fairground attractions to reflect the setting of a weird little show that opens with a group of teenagers from Uranium City, Saskatchewan, dying when the titular rollercoaster derails. Five members of a school band end up in a kind of afterlife holding pen, competing for the chance to return to life and be reincarnated, while the others move on.

Theatre review: Troilus and Cressida(Shakespeare's Globe)

If Hamlet's most famous question is asked by the title character, Troilus and Cressida's is asked by the audience, shortly after the play ends with the playwright bestowing a wish for sickness upon them: Will, u OK hun? Owen Horsley makes his Globe debut directing Shakespeare's most misanthropic, uncategorisable play, that uneasily mixes broad comedy with imagery soaked in disease, disappointment and decay. Taking The Iliad as its starting point, the play opens seven years into the Trojan War, with a stalemate exacerbated by the Greeks' indestructible warrior Achilles (David Caves) disillusioned and refusing to fight, instead staying in his tent with his demon twink boyfriend Patroclus (Tadeo Martinez.) When the Trojans' best fighter Hector (Oliver Alvin-Wilson) challenges the Greeks to send their own best against him, Ulysses (Jodie McNee) sees an opportunity to trick Achilles into rejoining the war.

Theatre review: The Lightning Thief

In among the Greek mythology that's been more present than ever on London stages lately is a more family-friendly version than the usual, um, complex mother-son relationships we get to dissect. Then again on this evidence Rick Riordan's Percy Jackson and the Olympians series of YA novels are based on the idea of the Olympian gods knocking up dozens of random humans and then forgetting the kids ever existed. Add some "issues" regarding consent and you'd have 90% of the Greek myths right there. Joe Tracz (book) and Rob Rokicki's (music & lyrics) The Lightning Thief: The Percy Jackson Musical is based on the first book in the series, in which Percy (Max Harwood) discovers that in his case the absent father is Poseidon, one of the three brothers who founded the Olympians, and therefore one of the three most powerful gods.

Theatre review: Twelfth Night, or What You Will(Regent's Park Open Air Theatre)

Well it's a good job I'm already more than familiar with the plot of this one, because any show featuring Nicholas Karimi as a sugar daddy in a low-cut top is going to be a tricky one to remember anything else about. Drew McOnie's first season of programming at Regent's Park Open Air Theatre starts with Twelfth Night, but it does share a thematic connection with his predecessor's final production, La Cage Aux Folles: Owen Horsley sets his production in a faded cabaret club, and even gives us a drag queen version of Sir Toby Belch. If the club's not heaving with customers it's probably because the owner, Olivia (Anna Francolini) has imposed a lengthy period of mourning for her dead brother, whose ashes she carries around with her everywhere, addressing her soliloquies to the urn. One regular patron is Orsino (Raphael Bushay,) who's performatively in love with Olivia, and keeps hoping despite all signs to the contrary that he might be able to woo her.

Theatre review: La Cage aux Folles

A few years ago the original French play La Cage aux Folles played a run at the Park Theatre; now Jerry Herman (music and lyrics) and Harvey Fierstein's (book) better-known, to English-speaking audiences at least, musical version returns to London as Timothy Sheader's final production at the Open Air Theatre before he swaps it for the Donald and Margot Warehouse. It's a good cap on his time as Artistic Director at Regents Park, showcasing at it does a fresh production of a classic musical, with a lot of heart, a lot of energy, and a design (in this case particularly Ryan Dawson Laight's showstopping costumes) that would be in a lot of trouble if, say, it ever rained in summer in London. The spectacular frocks are there, of course, because the titular club is the French Riviera's premier drag cabaret.

Theatre review: Torch Song

Have you ever felt like a theatre's gaslighting you? It's how I felt when the new Turbine Theatre announced its launch show as Harvey Fierstein's iconic 1970s gay play Torch Song, and none of the articles leading up to the production seemed to acknowledge that it's much better known as Torch Song Trilogy. It turns out that no I'm not going mad, yes that is the title of the 1970s play cycle, and yes there is a distinction: This is in fact the 2017 version of the script that Fierstein made significant cuts to, the slight title change differentiating between the two texts. Not that Drew McOnie's production departs from the original structure, even announcing the original plays' titles in neon signs over Ryan Dawson Laight's set. It's a story whose cast grows as it goes on, so opening act "International Stud" lights up just on drag queen Arnold (Matthew Needham) as he gets changed after a show, confessing to the audience how much he longs for a man he truly belongs with in the hedonistic underworld of gay '70s Manhattan.

Theatre review: Chess

Musicals don't get much more '80s than Tim Rice, Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus' Chess, which uses the rivalry between Russian and American Grand Masters as a metaphor for the Cold War. With music from the songwriters behind ABBA there's a lot of catchy tunes; the story is a bit more of a muddled affair, and Rice has regularly tinkered with the book over the years. His latest version premiered as a concert performance but Christopher Howell and Steven Harris' revival at the Union is the first time this "definitive" version has been fully staged. Ryan Dawson Laight's design configures the space into a thrust with a high platform upstage; you'll probably want to make sure you don't get stuck behind one of the pillars as the platform will probably be badly obscured from there but from our seats, at the corner of the stage, we could see fine.