Theatre review: Shucked

Shucked by the power

Shucked by the power of love

OK they don't actually do that one, but Robert Horn (book,) Brandy Clark and Shane McAnally's (music and lyrics) Shucked does provide some catchy tunes of its own once it gets going. Contrary to what I said last year, apparently this is actually the official first show in the Open Air Theatre's Drew McOnie era (given La Cage Aux Folles was much-trumpeted as Timothy Sheader's swansong I guess the whole 2024 season was an extended perineum period?) A piss-take of the stereotype of small American towns with no interest in the outside world, Cob County is literally cut off from everyone else by a dense circle of cornfields that surrounds it, but when the crop the entire town depends on starts to fail, plucky Maizy (Sophie McShera) goes against everyone's advice to find a solution outside: She finds a way out and seeks help in the big city (Tampa, FL.)

Theatre review: The Entertainer

If the whole point of SirKenBran's eponymous, year-long residency at the Garrick was to prove that he could programme a whole season and actually remember to turn up for the whole thing, then it looks like a success. If we're also meant to take into account the actual shows, though, this has made Michael Grandage's underwhelming West End season of a few years ago seem like a resounding triumph in comparison. For the finale SirKenBran lets Rob Ashford take the directing reins on his own, while he himself takes on the lead role in John Osborne's The Entertainer, a part the playwright himself once told him he should play. Of course, Osborne's been dead for over twenty years so he probably wouldn't be too offended if his suggestion had been ignored, and maybe SirKenBran should have thought instead of the living who actually have to sit through it every night. He plays Archie Rice, a music hall entertainer who followed his father Billy into showbusiness.