Theatre review:Two Strangers (Carry A Cake Across New York)

While we wait for news of whether my long-running campaign to have Indhu Rubasingham take over the National could actually come to something (she's currently considered the runaway favourite which... is basically a guarantee it won't happen,) the outgoing Artistic Director of the Kiln programmes one of the venue's biggest hits in a while, which extended its run before it even opened: Dougal (Sam Tutty) is a 25-year old Englishman whose father abandoned his mother shortly before he was born; he's never actually met him, but it's not been hard to keep up with what he's been up to because his father went on to become a millionaire. Now it seems Mark has finally remembered his son exists, as Dougal has received an invitation to his wedding in New York, to a much younger woman. He's flown over for two days, and is as excited to finally meet his father at he is to see the city of his favourite films.

Theatre review: Once On This Island

After last year’s Bring It On, youth musical theatre company the British Theatre Academy returns for a second summer season at Southwark Playhouse, the centrepiece a revival of Lynn Ahrens (book and lyrics) and Stephen Flaherty’s (music) 1990 fable Once on This Island. Taking its themes (very loosely) from The Little Mermaid and applying them to a story about the legacy of colonialism, it’s set on an island in the French Antilles divided starkly along both geographical and racial lines – there are the black “peasants,” and the white “grands hommes,” descendants of the French colonisers. Orphan Ti Moune (Chrissie Bhima) is discovered in a tree after a tropical storm and rescued by peasants. When she grows up and witnesses a car crash, she believes that the reason she was saved from the storm as a child is so that she can in turn save the driver’s life.