My Fair Lady - Review

The Mill At Sonning, Sonning

****

Music by Frederick Loewe

Lyrics and book by Alan Jay Lerner

Directed by Joseph Pitcher

Mark Monoghan and the cast of My Fair Lady

Joseph Pitcher directs an entertaining take on My Fair Lady at The Mill at Sonning that sees Nadim Naaman play a perfectly clipped Henry Higgins opposite Simbi Akande's Eliza Doolittle.

In a class act Naaman nails the Professor in a performance that captures both the man’s genius as well as his insensitive chauvinism. Akande brings vocal excellence to Eliza but she needs to dig a little bit deeper to bring out her character’s complex fragility and chemistry.

There is excellence elsewhere in Pitcher’s company. Jo Servi’s Colonel Pickering is drilled to perfection. Sophie Louise Dann delivers her usual flawless work, doubling up firstly as Mrs Hopkins and also as an outstanding Mrs Higgins, while the inspirational Mark Monaghan offers up perfectly executed comic relief as Alfred P. Doolittle.

Sonning’s intimate space is transformed by Diego Pitarch’s designs that elegantly suggest the story’s locations, from Covent Garden to Wimpole Street to Ascot. Pitcher and Alex Christian co-choreograph the show with Get Me to the Church on Time an exquisite riot of dance.

My Fair Lady at Sonning is a Christmas treat!

Runs until 17th January 2026

Photo credit: Pamela Raith

The Sound of Music - Review

Curve Theatre, Leicester

*****

Music by Richard Rodgers

Lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II

Book by Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse

Directed by Nikolai Foster

Molly Lynch

It’s been 11 years since the Curve was filled with the sound of music but in a radically imagined and invigorating staging, Nikolai Foster delivers possibly the finest interpretation of the Broadway classic to have played on this side of the Atlantic.

Before a word has been sung, the curtain rises on Michael Taylor’s set that is truly breathtaking. The Austrian mountains have been ingeniously crafted onto the vast Curve space, complete with lofty peaks, rolling mists and a trickling stream. The Nuns sing us into the Preludium before Molly Lynch as Maria appears at the top of the mountain, singing the title number as she picks her way down the hillside. This stunning image together with Lynch's pitch-perfect vocals deliver but one of the enchanting moments that are scattered throughout the evening, as Lynch reveals new depths to Maria’s complexities.

Foster offers us an eye-popping Maria, more pop-star than postulant. Lynch may give us a guitar-driven version of My Favourite Things, yet she can still portray a young woman capable of a blisteringly humbling honesty in front of Joanna Riding’s marvellous Mother Abbess. Not only that, hers is an an intuitively empathetic and compassionate connection with the von Trapp children. Truly a performance of musical theatre genius.

Mirroring the romantic partnership of last year’s My Fair Lady at Curve, David Seadon-Young is again the story's romantic foil, this time as the handsome, widowered Captain Georg von Trapp. Whether it’s chemistry or electricity that powers the romance between him and Maria is hard to tell. Whatever - the love that emerges between the pair is palpable, with Seadon-Young mirroring Lynch’s craft in musical theatre. And his Edelweiss is a stunner.

But this show is not all about the powerhouse couple of Maria and Georg. The calibre of Foster’s company is quite simply off the scale. Joanna Riding brings a fabulous combination of wit and wisdom to the Mother Abbess. As she delivers her truly blessed voice to this most blessed of characters, her Climb Ev’ry Mountain lifts the roof off both the Abbey and the Curve.

Minal Patel’s Max Detweiler captures the man’s complexities in a fine display of compassionate pomposity and with a fine singing voice too. In one of the story’s most two-dimensional characters, Faye Brooks has the tough gig of playing Elsa Schraeder, a woman who has to manage the pain of her unreturned love for Georg. Allowed only minimal dialogue to tell her story, Brooks’s acting is first-class. And in the Captain’s household, Rachel Izen’s housekeeper Frau Schmidt is another modest gem of a performance, cleverly capturing Schmidt’s starched, matriarchal kindness.

Ebony Molina choreographs with a thoughtful flair - and in the build up to the penultimate scene's Music Festival in Salzburg where the concert hall is of course packed full of evil Nazis, there is just a hint of Springtime For Hitler in her routine to herald the arrival of the von Trapp Family Singers 

Possibly the finest brand new production to be opening in the UK this Christmas, The Sound of Music in Leicester is unmissable.

Runs until 17th January 2026

Photo credit: Marc Brenner

A Christmas Carol - Review

Alexandra Palace Theatre

****

Written by Charles Dickens

Adapted by Mark Gatiss

Directed by Adam Penford

Matthew Cottle and Neil Morissey

Mark Gatiss has crafted a gorgeous adaptation of Charles Dickens’s Christmas classic. That the production is staged amidst the Victoriana of the Alexandra Palace Theatre only adds to the authenticity of the evening’s charm.

Adam Penford directs Matthew Cottle as Ebenezer Scrooge. Onstage virtually throughout, Penford delivers a cracking Scrooge, whose famed redemption is as uplifting as it is heart-touching. Grabbing the star-billing in this, the fourth outing for the Gatiss adaptation, is Neil Morrisey as Jacob Marley.

“Marley was dead” is how Dickens opened his narrative. Gatiss however cleverly weaves in a prologue that sets the scene some seven years prior. The show kicks off with Marley and Scrooge working side by side at their ledgers, curmudgeonly skinflints the pair of them, before Marley with a wonderfully comic flourish, drops his quill and drops dead. It’s a marvellous Marley from Morrisey who together with every other member of the cast (apart from Cottle), endures numerous costume changes as he delivers a number of the story’s supporting characters.

While the production is very much a tremendously company-driven production, Cottle helms the narrative exquisitely – his presence continuous throughout both acts, yet never dominating and always allowing the story’s nuances and fine detail to be played out by his fellow troupers.

Remembering that this is of course a ghost story, Gatiss retains the sharpness of Dickens’s black humour while also imbuing the production with just enough ghostly spookiness and deliciously simple special effects that will mildly scare the kids without going too far. Paul Wills’s set design is an equally ingenious treat – all swirling filing cabinets, moved around as needed, with projections to crown the show’s beautiful staging. 

This is fine company work with too many names to praise – a shout out however for the two kids rostered to perform on press night, Kaycee Davis and Dexter Pulling who were spot-on throughout.

A Christmas Carol at Alexandra Palace is fabulous festive fayre!

Runs until 4th January 2026

Photo credit: Mark Douet

All My Sons - Review

Wyndham's Theatre, London

*****

Written by Arthur Miller

Directed by Ivo Van Hove

Tom Glynn-Carney and Bryan Cranston

Arthur Miller’s All My Sons is given an astonishing and devastating reworking at the Wyndham’s Theatre under Ivo Van Hove’s direction. Written in 1946, with the USA still under the shadow of the Second World War, the play is a forensic critique of greed and amorality in the American war machine. More than that however, it is an equally brilliant analysis of grief, denial, love and betrayal with Miller using but the slightest of phrases and descriptions to paint a richly detailed canvas of one tiny slice of the country’s Midwest.

In a story that was inspired by real events, Van Hove casts Bryan Cranston as Joe Keller whose engineering company supplied a batch of fatally flawed engines to the US Air Force that resulted in the deaths of 21 pilots. Cranston is colossal in his portrayal of a man prepared to sacrifice friendship and, unwittingly, family on the altar of the American Dream in his corrupt pursuit of personal fortune. His Keller is credible and deeply, darkly human, holding a mirror to us all.

Miller’s genius extends beyond his flawed protagonist. The story’s supporting characters offer a complex web of relationships and interactions, delivered in this production by a stunning company. Marianne Jean-Baptiste is Keller’s knowing yet grieving wife Kate, who breaks our hearts as she faces the challenges that Miller throws at her. Jean-Baptiste’s performance matches Cranston for its nuanced sensitivity and downright brilliance. Paapa Essiedu as Keller’s son Chris together with Tom Glynn-Carney and Hayley Squires as troubled siblings George and Ann pick up the lion’s share of the younger generation’s roles, with all three actors delivering excellence as the hellish tale unfolds.

Van Hove’s direction is precise. The play’s action unfolds in the Kellers’ yard where a tree has portentously fallen over in a storm the night before. As a chainsaw is taken to the fallen timber and the sawdust flies, the smell of the petrol engine’s exhaust filling the auditorium adds a curious and unexpected sensation of authenticity to the on-stage action.

Written in three acts, Van Hove chooses to dispense with any interval break at all, leading to a 2hr10 marathon of intense drama – that actually works incredibly well. The perfectly aligned combination of Miller’s prose delivered by a gifted company leads to an evening of tragically blistering perfection.

Runs until 7th March 2026

Photo credit: Jan Versweyveld

Wicked Witches Panto For Adults! - Review

Pleasance Theatre, London

**

Written and directed by Shane Shayshay Konno

Gigi Zahir

Leaping onto Wicked’s broomstick, Wicked Witches is the 2025 panto from the Pleasance. The producers have chosen to split the show into two separate versions, the Adult show plays to a strictly 18+ audience in the evenings while the Family iteration plays to the earlier houses.

Creating classy pantomime is a craft. Typically a show will play to a family crowd, frequently comprising school parties, and the humour has to be pitched very carefully. Saucy and edgy enough to make the grown-ups chuckle, but nothing that would make Granny (or the Headteacher) really blush. That's what a good family panto is all about - Oh yes it is!

Adult panto is a different ball-game, a no-holds-barred genre in which the gloves are (or should be) off. Its language and humour can be, and are expected to be, filthy. In adapting his family panto for an adult audience however, writer/director Shane Shayshay Konno has overreached himself and fallen very short. 

For an "adults-only show", the gags are lukewarm and the filth, smut and innuendo that would be expected, is equally tepid. With a script that is more eye-rolling than eye-watering, the evening turns out to be more of a gender-focussed, politically-correct picket line than the festive, bawdy, offensive entertainment that it should be.

To be fair, there’s solid work from both Gigi Zahir as the Wicked Witch (with stunning makeup) as well as Eleanor Burke as the Good Witch. Zahir turns in a cracking take on Adele while Burke deliciously hams up her Glinda-esque character. 

The much vaunted celebrity cameos come from the (brilliant) Ian McKellen as Toto the dog, lobbing in as many canine-themed puns as his brief slot allows, and Jeremy Corbyn MP. Gracing the show as the Wizard of Oz-Lington, Corbyn's acting skill is matched only by his ability to win a general election. There is however a delicious irony in seeing a failed national politician (locally of course, Corbyn is revered by a majority of Islington's munchkins who think he's wonderful) play one of literature's most celebrated charlatans.

Booking tickets for the Family version is strongly recommended. With a two-hour running time to fill, it’s gotta be better than this!

Runs until 22nd December

(Family version runs until 28th December)

Photo credit: Ella Carmen Dale

The Hunger Games On Stage - Review

Troubadour Canary Wharf Theatre, London

*****

Based on the book by Suzanne Collins & the Lionsgate feature film

Adapted by Conor McPherson

Directed by Matthew Dunster

The company of The Hunger Games On Stage

Suzanne Collins’s The Hunger Games leaps from page and screen to the London stage with breathtaking force. Staged within the striking setting of the Canary Wharf Troubadour Theatre, this production is nothing short of a triumph — a thrilling fusion of innovation, emotion, and stagecraft that redefines immersive theatre.

From the moment the lights dim the fictional world of Panem is enveloping. The arena-like stage, complete with moving rows of seats, pyrotechnics, fog and precision-timed lighting transforms the space into a living battleground. The inventive use of practical effects — arrows, knives, fire, and illusion — conjures pure theatrical magic, every scene delivering energy and purpose.

The emotional core of the story lands with equal power. Mia Carragher plays Katniss whose self-sacrifice for her sister remains deeply moving, as the cast deliver performances of intensity and heart. Stavros Demetraki as Caesar Flickerman gives an uncanny and crowd-pleasing echo of Stanley Tucci’s original, commanding laughter and tension in equal measure. The ensemble excel at audience interaction, especially during the Capitol’s television sequences, where the line between performer and spectator is delightfully blurred.

Visually, the contrast between the Capitol’s lavishly complete sets and District 12’s resourceful, fragmented design could not be more striking. It’s a masterstroke that mirrors the story’s central theme of inequality — those who struggle to survive versus those who pay to watch. Every technical element, from sound to lighting, serves the narrative rather than overshadowing it.

What makes this production exceptional is its balance of spectacle and soul. It dazzles the senses while keeping its heart firmly rooted in the humanity of its characters. Rarely does a show of such scale retain this much emotional truth.

In short, The Hunger Games is a landmark piece of live theatre — visually stunning, emotionally charged, and conceptually daring. A must-see for both fans of the franchise and anyone passionate about what can be achieved on stage.

Booking until 25th October 2026

Photo credit: Johan Persson

Reviewed by Eris

Mr Jones - Review

Finborough Theatre, London

*****

Written by Liam Holmes

Directed by Michael Neri

Mabli Gwynne and Liam Holmes

Stephen Jones (played by Liam Holmes) is a young lad from Aberfan in south Wales. A gifted rugby player, he’s the ‘King of the Village’ have just propelled the team into the cup-final. Angharad Price (Mabli Gwynne) is his teenage sweetheart and a young nurse. Stephen lives with his widowered father and his little brother David who’s a pupil at the village primary school.

But this is 1966 when on Friday 21st October a waterlogged, mountainous tip of spoil slid down the hillside and devastated Aberfan. 116 children at the primary school perished in the disaster, together with 28 adults - and the tight, tiny village community was shattered.

In an astonishing piece of theatre, Holmes has penned the most remarkably intimate portrayal of Welsh village life alongside the unimaginable grief of the Aberfan disaster. His play is a simply staged two-hander that spends its first 30 minutes building the characters. The craft in Holmes’s writing is exquisite, with hints of Dylan Thomas in his affectionately mocking descriptions of the village characters. But that half-hour is time well spent, for it allows the audience to have deeply invested in the villagers. When the tip collapses and 150,000 tons of slurry descend on Aberfan - all we hear is a growing, growling, horrendous rumble - the look of disbelieving horror on the two actors’ faces is almost unbearable to observe.

Holmes the writer shifts his times and locations around the later weeks of 1966 as Angharad and Stephen try to come to terms with the impact of the disaster. Holmes the actor, together with Gwynne are a masterful pair. He in dealing with the loss of the younger brother who idolised him, and her in having to have coped with the trauma of receiving the bodies of the dead children at the hospital. 

It is rare to see new writing of such stellar quality. The two characters navigating their grief makes for harrowing and heart-breaking drama. Simple narratives, combined with outstanding acting. Theatre does not get better than this.

Runs until 22nd November

Photo credit:  Ali Wright

The Assembled Parties - Review

Hampstead Theatre, London

****

Written by Richard Greenberg

Directed by Blanche McIntyre

Tracy-Ann Oberman

Rooted firmly in late 20th century New York City, The Assembled Parties offers two glimpses of a Jewish family gathered to celebrate Christmas. Firstly in 1980 and then, after the interval, 20 years later.

Tracy-Ann Oberman as Faye and Jennifer Westfeldt as her sister in law Julie share the respective matriarchal honours amidst a clan that is riven with both tragedy and dysfunctionality. 

While the entire narrative plays out in the two apartments that have been Julie's evolving homes through the years, it is both women who sensitively deliver roles of fragile complexity. Oberman's presence however electrifies the drama. Faye is gifted the lioness's share of the more acerbic one-liners, presenting the rare treat of a Dorothy Parker-like wit that has been infused with the humour of the Borscht Belt. Oberman's timing and nuanced delivery is en-pointe throughout, creating a bittersweet combination of caustic compassion.

It is the fractured relationships between parents and children that drives Richard Greenberg’s story and if the overall piece feels a tad long at 2 1/2 hours, it leads towards a finale that is surprisingly satisfying and uplifting. Alongside the two leads there is fine work from Alexander Marks and Sam Marks playing a clutch of younger men caught up in the family's issues.

Blanche McIntyre directs with understanding. This is a rare chance to see a play that in 2013 captivated Broadway.

Runs until 22nd November

Photo credit: Helen Murray

Wyld Woman: The Legend of Shy Girl - Review

Southwark Playhouse, London

***

Written by Isabel Renner

Directed by Cameron King

Isabel Renner

In a non-stop 70 minute whirlwind of a solo performance, Isabel Renner brings the New York angst of a single, virginal woman to the Little Space at London’s Southwark Playhouse.

Whether the play is an accurate depiction of the female psyche is not for me to say. As Renner explores her character’s frenetic anxieties, skipping backwards and forwards across the fourth wall as she does so, it is not easy to determine if her script is a brilliant study on the vulnerabilities of post-modern femininity, or more simply a sensationally sexualised and frequently tawdry self-indulgence.

Renner’s acting is top-notch. It’s hard to say the same about her writing.

Runs until 15th November

Photo credit: Charlie Lyne

Jaws : The Exhibition

Academy Museum of Motion Pictures, Los Angeles

🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

Robert Shaw as Quint during production of Jaws (1975)
Courtesy of Universal Studios Licensing LLC

Walking around the West Hollywood district of Los Angeles, one could easily be mistaken into thinking that Jaws had only just opened. With its posters and banners adorning nearly every lamppost and billboard it appears as though as much marketing spend is being splashed on Spielberg’s classic picture as on the latest smash hit of 2025.

Today’s razzamatazz however is not so much about the film as about the the Academy’s exhibition that is all about the movie. For the first time in its history, the Academy Museum is mounting an an event centred solely on one motion picture in celebration of the 50th anniversary of the film’s opening.

(When the movie celebrated its "40th anniversary", I interviewed Carl Gottlieb) 

50 years is a long time to look back on. If one were to rewind 50 years back from 1975, back in 1925 Tinseltown was still producing silent movies. Think of Harold Lloyd in Safety Last (1924) and then remember that the first truly celebrated ‘talkie’ The Jazz Singer was not to be released until 1927 and you start to get some context of the significance of this 50-year milestone. 

Director Steven Spielberg was not widely known outside of Hollywood in 1973/74, when the movie was first conceived. It was a combination of his vision and passion to translate Peter Benchley’s bestselling novel, together with the visionary confidence of hardened producers Richard D. Zanuck and David Brown who had secured the movie rights even before the book was published, that saw the movie take shape.

Jaws (1975) production clapperboard
Courtesy of The Amblin Hearth Archive

As a piece of cinema, Jaws is close to perfection. With a screenplay penned by Carl Gottlieb and Benchley himself - both men have neat cameo appearances in the movie too - the script is a beautifully crafted examination of the human condition, set to a backdrop of thrilling tension and sometimes horror. That the odd moment of perfectly timed humour is also added to the mix only adds to the movie’s pedigree. If Hamlet is considered to be perhaps the finest stage play ever written, then Jaws ranks alongside Shakespeare's masterpiece as its cinematic equivalent. 

As a pre-teenager (just) I queued excitedly in December 1975 to catch the movie on its Boxing Day release in the UK. Since then (and latterly with my sons) I have watched it countless times in the cinema, in IMAX, as well as on smaller screens too. So my sense of anticipation, expectation and excitement on entering the Academy’s 4th floor exhibition hall this week was as pumped as Richard Dreyfuss’s Matt Hooper on catching his first glimpse of the shark in the movie.

I was not disappointed. My expectations were not just exceeded, rather, and much like the shark’s final moments in the movie, they were blown to bits. In a stunning array of exhibits, the Academy’s curating team have deconstructed the movie, virtually scene-by-scene, explaining both the story’s narrative and the technological accomplishments of Spielberg and his gifted cast and crew.

Concept illustration by production designer Joe Alves
Courtesy of Universal Studios Licensing LLC

The exhibition’s displays are both imaginative and informative. Aside from a breathtaking presentation of props and costumes that have been wonderfully preserved over the last 5 decades, a number of ingeniously presented looping projections present some of the movie’s key moments. Chrissie’s death, the attack on Alex Kintner (which, through Spielberg’s vision, brilliantly included so much of the Mayor’s despicable behaviour in the few minutes immediately prior to the young lad’s demise), Quint’s USS Indianapolis monologue are all there to be savoured. There is even “that” scene with Ben Gardner’s severed head, looping in a discrete corner of the exhibition hall -  complete with the prosthetic head that was created for the moment displayed alongside!

Director Steven Spielberg and editor Verna Fields during production of Jaws (1975)
Courtesy of Margaret Herrick Library, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences

The explanatory texts that accompany each exhibit are fascinating. Who even knew that that head scene was only added to the picture after the first preview audiences had seen an early cut? It was on seeing the muted audience reaction that Spielberg knew he needed to add a “jump-scare”. With principal photography having long concluded – and the budget exhausted - the scene was shot in the backyard swimming pool belonging to Verna Fields, the movie’s Oscar winning editor. Not only that, Speilberg funded the costs of that scene out of his own pocket!

The exhibition has some interactive moments too: explore the pneumatic workings of Bruce the shark; try your hand at that famous dolly-zoom shot before going on to see (carefully preserved within a clear viewing case) the massive Panavision anamorphic zoom lens that Director of Photography Bill Butler actually used to create that shot.

Roy Scheider as Martin Brody and Lorraine Gary as Ellen Brody in a scene from Jaws (1975)
Courtesy of Universal Studios Licensing LLC

Cast and crew during production of Jaws (1975)
Courtesy of Universal Studios Licensing LLC

The details on display at the exhibition ensure that it will appeal equally to students of cinema as well as to fans of the movie, or of Spielberg's work, or just those who enjoy a good story that is brilliantly told.   

Exhibitions of this outstanding quality and detail are as rare as an attack by a great white shark off the New England coast. If you are able to find your way to LA in the next nine months, then a trip to the Academy Museum is essential. 

Jaws : The Exhibition. It's the head, the tail, the whole damn thing.

Runs until 26th July 2026

Jaws: The Exhibition is organized by Senior Exhibitions Curator Jenny He and Assistant Curator Emily Rauber Rodriguez, with Curatorial Assistant Alexandra James Salichs

My thanks to the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures for allowing me to access their image collection 

Director Steven Spielberg, kneeling with camera, during production of Jaws (1975). Others unidentified
Courtesy of Margaret Herrick Library, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences