Theatre review: Miss Atomic Bomb

You can avoid reviews all you like - and I try - but sometimes it's hard to miss the consensus about a show, and even before the official reviews came out earlier this week it was clear which way the wind was blowing for Miss Atomic Bomb. So saying anything about it now already feels a bit like kicking a man when he's down, but I'm afraid I won't be going against the flow: Gabriel Vick, Alex Jackson-Long and Adam Long (the latter also co-directing with choreographer Bill Deamer) have assembled an impressive cast for their musical premiere at the St James, but the actors end up looking about as confused about why they're there as the audience do. Lou Lubowitz (Simon Lipkin) is a 1950s Las Vegas hotel manager working for a gangster (David Birrell,) albeit a gangster who doesn't actually seem to have any illegal business beyond running a hotel in an unnecessarily aggressive way.

Theatre review: Titanic

I wonder how many people will turn up at Southwark Playhouse for Titanic the Musical expecting an all-singing, all-dancing adaptation of the James Cameron film? I'm afraid you won't be seeing any high-kicks to "Paint Me Like Your French Girls, Jack" or a curtain-call rendition of "Oops I Did It Again" complete with the bit where the Heart of the Ocean gets retrieved from the depths. Instead, Maury Yeston and Peter Stone's version takes all its characters from real people who sailed on the iconic but doomed liner, some of them staying on to her final destination, others getting off at an earlier, more convenient point. This is a true ensemble piece that tries to build a flavour of all four different groups of people who sailed on Titanic, simplified down to a mostly-American First Class, mostly-English Second Class, mostly-Irish Third Class plus a crew from around the British Isles.