Theatre review: Redcliffe

Musical theatre performers sometimes turn their hand to writing for the genre, and this is not the first time I've seen one of the resulting shows staged, but it's got to be the most accomplished debut I've caught. Jordan Luke Gage has been lucky enough to perform in a few outstanding musicals and Redcliffe, which he's written book, music and lyrics for as well as starring in, proves he's been paying close attention. Set across 1752-1753 in the titular area of Bristol, William Critchard (Gage) returns home for Christmas from his job as a footman at a rural mansion. He hasn't yet told his family that the return is more permanent than a seasonal holiday, as he's been let go on vague grounds of "not being quite right." Inevitably this boils down to him being quite an effete, bookish young man who's never really fit in, and whose mother (Rebecca Lock) is still hoping might meet the right girl soon.

Theatre review: Preludes

Prolific off-Broadway composer Dave Malloy hasn’t had much work seen in the UK that I’m aware of, but with his shows starting to move to Broadway and win Tonys London theatres seem to be catching up, with two works from his back catalogue opening this autumn. If the opening salvo is anything to go by we’re in for an… odd time, if not quite as irritating to me as some of his peers’ experimental work. Preludes takes its theme from the late 19th/early 20th century Russian pianist, conductor and composer Sergei Rachmaninoff, who became an overnight sensation with his Prelude aged 19, only to have a disastrous reception to his Symphony No. 1. There followed a three-year period of depression and writer’s block, which he only came out of with the help of extensive analysis and hypnotherapy from Nikolai Dahl (Rebecca Caine.) Malloy imagines this period of Rachmaninov’s life through the prism of the trances he was put into.