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Much Ado About Nothing, Theatre Royal Drury Lane. 1/3/2025

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Shakespeare’s most popular comedy is the perfect romantic comedy: it’s got the two lovers who can’t function together because they’re both in love; and it’s got the ridiculous pairing between Hero and Count Claudio, and the drama when Hero is accused of secretly “speaking” to another man on the eve of her wedding. It’s a lot of fun and the tragedy of Hero’s false allegation can be seen as what pulls Beatrice and Benedick together. Directors of the play have to come up with joyful conceits to make everything work. And the very stylish young Jamie Lloyd has decided that a 90s club musical is the way to go. As usual the stage is completely bare and there’s confetti and pulsing lights to go with the classic tracks—which are neatly placed between scenes for all of the first half. Tom Hiddleston and Hayley Atwell are both fantastic in a performance which uses all the Shakespearean wit plus nods to the pair’s Marvel roles and Hiddleston’s reputation is being very popular with the ladies. The...
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Jeff Wayne’s Musical Version of War of The Worlds

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No-one would have believed, back in the early 80s when I first heard the album, that I’d be sat forty or more years later watching the hugely popular Jeff Wayne’s Musical Version of War of The Worlds : the album is a classic piece of 1970s ensemble musical performers plus the gravitas of Richard Burton’s unmistakable voice. That the album is a classic meant little to me back then: that its running time was a bit more than you could fit on a 90 minute cassette was the big problem. So you listened on vinyl or you missed the rather important end… They’ve re-worked the piece, with some inserted commentary from HG Welles at the beginning of the 20th Century, then after the two world wars. It’s part of the show’s message about the arrogance of post-Victorian Empire being brought low by an overwhelmingly violent takeover from the alien red planet. We know that it’s not red weed that gives that world its colour, but almost everything else about the message of this piece rings very differently ...
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Starlight Express

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  In the 80s Starlight Express was the brash follow-up to Cats —the show that seemed unlikely to succeed but became a phenomenon with an eventual 25 years run. Starlight is about trains as characters: the engines who compete in a race—the stuff of a boy’s dream—with locomotives attached. Each character has their own personality, and there’s trash-talk and rap as well as a sweet love story and the mystical notion underpinning growing self-belief. This new production in Wembley is the third version in the UK: The Apollo Victoria theatre was the home to the groundbreaking premiere, but it was also leg-breaking and the production was scaled down in the early 90s, with some new songs. And amazingly it ran to 2004. Now, with the Wembley production there are more new songs and some gender-changes. Poppa is Momma, Greaseball and the gang are ladies, and there’s a Nitrogen powered locomotive. Most importantly the auditorium has been built around the production, so it’s no longer crammed int...
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