Witness - Review

JW3, London

****

Co-curated by Mina Kupfermann and Manick Govinda

Benzi Brofman's portrait of the Bibas Family

Mounted at JW3 in London, Witness showcases the work of three Jewish artists, exploring their experience of antisemitism. To view the work on display is humbling, a truly bittersweet display of visual art across a range of media.

Co-curator Mina Kupfermann brings a tragically ethereal style to her imagery that is at best unnaturalistic. Her work suggests a fragile beauty, particularly of those poor souls who were murdered at the Nova Festival in Israel on October 7th 2023. Kupfermann’s work demands our engagement to decipher her message – indeed, the evening’s titular piece Witness is a towering montage of antisemitic bile, so massive that binoculars are on offer to study the work’s loftier inclusions - and when one’s grief is already strong, viewing her creations is, at times, challenging.

Maya Amrami offers a fusion of textiles and AI-driven technology in her work, drawn from her experience as an Israeli Londoner, and the antisemitic contempt and abuse that was hurled at her in the aftermath of October 7th. Hers is a powerful message, delivered in a most disconcerting style, that works as a transference of the pain that she has suffered, into the mind of the person viewing her work.

The exhibitions’s most powerful display however is the work of Benzi Brofman, an Israeli street artist. By a stroke of luck Brofman was spared the horrors of the massacre at the Nova Festival, having needed to have left the Gaza envelope shortly before October 7th. Channelling the energy of his survival, Brofman has made it his mission to create portraits of those murdered and taken hostage on that terrible day. With a tragically beautiful and breathtaking mastery of the airbrush, Brofman’s portraits demand that we look that day’s victims in the eye. His attention to detail is acute and when one, for example, stares at his portrait of the Bibas family, the effect is profoundly moving. It should be recorded that Brofman's original works are now mostly in the possession of the respective subjects' families. On display at JW3 are immaculately created prints of his work that touch our very souls.

While the artwork on display ranges from impressive to outstanding, there is a cloud overshadowing the exhibition. The event was commissioned by the London Centre For The Study of Contemporary Antisemitism (LCSCA) and it was a recent decision by the LCSCA to withdraw from the International Conference on Combating Antisemitism convened by the Israeli Diaspora Ministry that is a deep disappointment. Professor David Hirsh, the LCSCA CEO, in objecting to the presence of a number of invitees to the Israeli event stated: “We must embrace democratic politics that is open to all, and not one that, like antisemitism itself, consigns people arbitrarily and irretrievably to the enemy camp.

I respect the legitimacy of the Israeli Government, but as a scholar my job is to speak clearly when I judge that the wrong path is being considered. I hope that Global Forums in the future will return to the practice of bringing together diverse viewpoints and approaches in serious, evidence-based and rational debate.”

In refusing to engage with those with whom he disagrees and by not attending a democratic conference that is “open to all” Hirsh’s words become a virtue-signalling self-contradiction. As I wrote on 28th March 2025 on this same subject, even Shylock was prepared to talk to his sworn enemy. Hirsh et al should do the same.

Witness is at JW3 until 2nd April

Alfred Hitchcock presents The Musical - Review

Theatre Royal, Bath

****

Original score by Steven Lutvak

Book by Jay Dyer

Directed by John Doyle

Sally Ann Triplett

A fabulous fusion of parody and style that is immaculately performed, Alfred Hitchcock presents – The Musical celebrates one of the greatest television series of the 1950s, arguably one of the foundation stones of television history, in a multi-faceted musical tribute.

Mounted on an open stage, (design credits shared between the production's accomplished director John Doyle and David L. Arsenault) with one vintage TV camera and a boom mic to set the scene accompanied by six suspended brute film lights, the monochrome colour scheme of costume and props fixes the show’s era and all viewed through the borders of a television screen mounted around the edges of the Theatre Royal’s proscenium arch. Amidst this melee of ‘50s iconography a star-studded cast of 14 play out a handful of B-movie crime stories in the style of Hitchcock’s series’ 30-minute episodes. The stories intermingle like a patchwork quilt – cheating spouses and laconic beat-cops a recurring theme, mixed in with murder and blackmail and all sung exquisitely (albeit annoyingly, with no list of musical numbers included in the programme). The opening routine pays homage to the familiar motif of the TV series’ theme tune, while the songs themselves include some deliciously complicated harmonies. This is the America of Betty Crocker, ice-cold glasses of poisoned lemonade, and Chevrolets with front seats so wide they go on forever.

Sally Ann Triplett, Nicola Hughes, Scarlett Strallen and Damien Humbley get the lion’s share of the narratives – but there are juicy solos for all throughout an evening that showcases the country’s finest musical theatre talent.

The stories’ punchlines come with twists that feel like a cascade of Roy Lichtenstein cartoons. A familiarity with 50’s flair, albeit non-essential, will aid an appreciation of the show. For novices to the genre, just sit back and enjoy some of the most imaginative new writing around. 

A gloriously niche pastiche.

Runs until 12th April

Photo credit Manuel Harlan

Man In The Mirror - Review

Golders Green Hippodrome, London

****

CJ

Man In The Mirror is a highly polished tribute act created around Michael Jackson’s greatest hits. Leading the show is CJ, a man whose vocals and dance work is impeccable and who effortlessly captures Jackson’s  high tenor genius. Visually CJ is equally stunning, with his moonwalk and perfectly nuanced interpretation of Jackson’s signature dance moves, breathtaking in their poise and accuracy.

All the big songs are there with CJ brilliantly supported by his 4 piece band of  Nic Southwood, Doug Jenkinson, Lewis Wheeler and Chris Davies. Similarly the choreography is pinpoint precision with Holly Harrison (CJ’s offstage wife) having drilled her three fellow dancers Becky Holden, Harriet Johnstone and Laura Summers into an evening of gorgeous routines.

More of a gig than a stage-show, with so many of the audience being word-perfect with the King of Pop’s lyrics there’s much impromptu audience contribution that only added to the fun factor for the packed crowd in the Golders Green Hippodrome. It says something for Jackson’s body of work that the Hippodrome audience was fabulously diverse spanning the spectra of age, race and sexualities – Michael Jackson would have been proud.

The acoustics were great with the sound perfectly balanced. On a show that is built for the road, lighting will always prove a challenge and it was a small frustration that for much of the show the dancers were not lit as well as they deserved. Clever CGI projections formed the show’s backdrop – but the filmed zombies as the visual accompaniment to Thriller were repetitive and clunky. The dancers’ hijabs in the final number also offered a brief bias to the evening that slightly jarred.

Man In The Mirror is a slick interpretation of Michael Jackson with CJ delivering an outstanding turn and his company proving equally talented. If you love the music you’ll adore the show.

On tour until 2026 - details here 

Wild Rose - Review

Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh

*****

Book by Nicole Taylor

Directed by John Tiffany

Dawn Sievewright and the company of Wild Rose

In much the same way as the movie Local Hero was Bill Forsyth’s 1983 love letter to the Scottish highlands, so has Wild Rose become Nicole Taylor's glorious celebration of Glasgow. Drawn from the 2018 movie as with Forsyth, Taylor has woven into her narrative an ingeniously plausible connection to the USA.

The story's Rose-Lynn Harlan is a young Glaswegian whom we meet as she is being paroled from jail (think John Belushi's Jake in The Blues Brothers opening scene, just with a different musical angle).  A single mum of two pre-teens, and from one of the city’s toughest tower blocks, hers has not been an easy life. But Taylor, in projecting her own love for country music onto her leading lady, has endowed Rose-Lynn with a passion for country that drives the show.

Dawn Sievewright is Rose-Lynn in what must surely be one of the finest musical theatre role creations to premiere in the UK this year. Sievewright not only possesses the pipes to take the roof off the Royal Lyceum when needed but more than that, she takes us on Rose-Lynn’s journey (no spoilers here) that acutely address her feelings of inadequacy as a young mum and the contrast she witnesses (in her job as a cleaner or “daily woman”) between the well-off and the poor. Sievewright’s singing and acting are exquisite – but it is credit to Taylor who wields her pen like a scalpel, depicting deep human pain with just a perfectly placed word or phrase. With so many musical theatre writers falling back on lazy exposition and a dictionary of rhymes, the budding librettists and lyricists of today would do well to study Taylor's masterclass of a script. John Tiffany’s gifted direction only enhances the evening. 

The show is a carefully curated country collection, all delivered impeccably and with Taylor's choices ranging from Country Girl through to Peace In This House and Glasgow (No Place Like Home) she rollercoasters her audience through the full range of emotions. Notably supporting Sievewright are Blythe Duff as Marion, her mother, Janet Kumah as Susannah, the client for whom Rose-Lynn cleans and on the night of this review Alfie Campbell and Lily Ferguson, the two young actors playing her son and daughter.

Music is essential to the strength of this show and Ali Roocroft’s eight-piece band (including seven(!) strings players) add a superb enhancement to the evening’s country credentials.

Built around three chords and the truth, Wild Rose is new musical theatre at its finest. Amidst its raw and rough colloquial Scots brogue (more inspired writing from Taylor), there is a diamond of a show that deserves to be cut, polished and mounted in the West End. Soon!

Runs until 19th April

Photo credit: Mihaela Bodlovic

White Rose The Musical - Review

Marylebone Theatre, London

**

Music by Natalie Brice

Lyrics and book by Brian Belding

Directed by Will Nunziata

The cast of White Rose

White Rose is a musical with its heart in the right place but sadly, not much else.

Based upon the real life group of Munich-based student activists who in the 1940s took a stand against Hitler’s regime, the show lacks the humbling genius of the brave young Germans who were its inspiration.

Other musicals have brilliantly tackled the ghastliness of the Third Reich, with Cabaret, The Sound of Music and The Producers (to name but three) all drawing on differing combinations of wit, irony and pathos to describe that darkest period of Europe's 20th-century history. White Rose however barely gets beyond repetitive, shallow, expositional numbers (which annoyingly, are not even listed in the programme), mostly set to jarringly forgettable rock rhythms. The impressively gifted and accomplished cast representing the best of young British musical theatre talent, are wasted on these mediocre melodies.

The show ends with the noble students singing “We will not be silenced” . If only…

Runs until 13th April

Photo credit: Marc Brenner

Farewell Mister Haffmann - Review

Park Theatre, London

***

Written by Jean-Philippe Daguerre

Translated by Jeremy Sams

Directed by Oscar Toeman

Nigel Harman and Jemima Rooper

Blending history with fiction, Jean-Phillipe Daguerre’s narrative explores Paris under Nazi occupation in the early 1940s.

Alex Waldmann is the titular Parisian jeweller, a Jew who transfers the ownership of his business to his Catholic employee Pierre (Michael Fox) to avoid it being seized by the Nazis. Haffmann also requests of Pierre that he and his wife Isabelle (Jennifer Kirby) move into the flat above the jewellery shop, with the hope that the couple will provide sufficient decoy to enable the jeweller to avoid deportation to the concentration camps. Not long into the establishment of this ménage-a-trois, we learn that Pierre is infertile and that a bizarre deal is to be brokered in which Haffmann is to impregnate Isabelle. This is an improbable storyline at best, which for the audience’s disbelief to be effectively suspended, requires actors of the highest calibre. Unfortunately the hard-working trio lack a convincing chemistry and so the first hour or so of this 90-minute, one-act play makes for soggy and unconvincing drama.

However - much like the way Steven Spielberg made the audience wait 80 minutes before revealing the shark in his movie Jaws, the evening’s final third is electric, as Otto Abetz (Nigel Harman), Hitler’s real-life ambassador to France together with his wife Suzanne (Jemima Rooper) arrive as the dinner guests of Pierre and Isabelle.

Harman’s Nazi is clipped and manicured and in a performance that must surely be up for an Offie nomination, his manifestation of the Third Reich’s evil proves as mesmerising as Christoph Waltz’s Hans Landa in Quentin Tarantino’s Inglorious Basterds. Rooper’s drunken Suzanne is equally entertaining.

There maybe moments when Farewell Mister Haffmann feels like a long-haul but hang in there, Nigel Harman is sensational!

Runs until 12th April

Photo credit: Mark Senior

Il Trovatore - Review

Royal Opera House, London

****

Music by Guiseppe Verdi

Libretto by Salvadore Cammarano

Conducted by Giacomo Sagripanti

Directed by Adele Thomas

Agnieszka Rehlis

Il Trovatore, one of  Verdi’s greatest compositions hails back to a golden age of fabulous  storytelling. By todays’ standards this yarn of passion, jealousy, a gypsy’s curse and suicide - not forgetting the misogyny - would not even make it past a first draft. But Cammarano’s lyrics and Verdi’s music lift this melodramatic narrative into an evening of beauty that is driven by a spectacular cast.

Michael Fabiano is Manrico, Aleksei Isaev is his rival in love, the Count di Luna. Rachel Willis-Sørensen sings the role of Leonora, the object or both men’s desires, while Agnieszka Rehlis sings Azucena. If you are familiar with the story, you will understand the interactions of those characters. If you’re new to the tale - just head to the Royal Opera House to discover them for yourselves - you won't be disappointed!

While Giacomo Sagripanti conducts magnificently and Adele Thomas’ direction is assured and perceptive, the curiously clad Chorus prove a dystopian distraction.

Playing on a handful of dates until March 22nd - and with the Anvil Chorus too, what’s not to love about this operatic treat?

Photo credit: Camilla Greenwell