To me, COPS, set in 1950s Chicago, comes across as so authentically period that it feels like it must be a finely minted revival. But it's not: it's a new play. Even more surprising then tha…
After acclaim last year at Manchester's mighty Hope Mill Theatre, RAGS The Musical has transferred to the Park Theatre for a limited season. It's a Broadway musical with a long, chequered hi…
Curtains, the murder mystery musical comedy by Chicago and Cabaret creators Kander & Ebb, had its Broadway premiere in 2007 in a production starring Frasier's David Hyde Pierce. Why has …
After Tania Amsel's new play Blood Orange the night before, I returned to the Old Red Lion Theatre for Paragon Theatre's adaptation of Charles Dickens' ghost story The Signalman. Dickens in …
How worried are you about the myriad pressures on the NHS today? Will you be thinking about the future of the NHS when you go to the ballot box? The post <em>Blood Orange</em> po…
It's official! Christmas is coming up fast. And that, of course, means it's pantomime season. How do you choose which of the biggies to see this year? Why choose? See the seven (or maybe twe…
A year on, during which they've released a single with Melanie C, Sink the Pink are back at the Pleasance Theatre with the second in their queer trilogy of alternative Christmas shows. Ginge…
How do you get SIX MILLION followers on Twitter? As someone who spends all day most days on social media, I'm staggered by the very notion. It must require divine intervention... of sorts. T…
What part do costumes play in branding for The Play That Goes Wrong around the world? How are they made durable enough to survive eight performances a week of one of Theatreland's most physi…
Are you fans of Isabel Allende's The House of the Spirits? Allende's multi-award-winning debut novel, released in 1982, charts four generations of one family from the 1920s and the 1970s, an…
While MPs were voting for an election that is likely to accelerate the UK's lurch to the right, I was back at Above The Stag Theatre last night talking about the increasingly worrying …
After several years' development, the Royal Shakespeare Company's highly anticipated new musical " an adaptation of best-selling children's author David Walliams' 2008 debut novel The Boy…
Despite singing the songs of Sinatra since he was a teenager in Wolverhampton, Richard Shelton was turned down multiple times for a part in concert show The Rat Pack. So when he was invited …
I'm a huge fan of the late, Pulitzer Prize-winning American playwright (and Oscar-nominated actor) Sam Shepard. How wonderful to be able to see and discuss one of his late plays, Ages …
As part of an ongoing series, I've chaired post-show talks with various Mischief Theatre casts this year, all of whom waxed lyrical about the brilliance of the company founders. Last night, …
I feel like I've known writer Sarah Rutherford for years… that's one of the positives of social media. (We follow each other on Twitter.) The irony is it's her new play, The Girl Who Fell,…
A philosophising cat, a famished dog and a family of mites all make appearances " and strong impressions " in Mites, a new play by up-and-coming young British playwright James Mannion,…
I was back at Trafalgar Studios last night for this much-anticipated revival of Peter Nichols' 1967 masterpiece A Day in the Death of Joe Egg. And there was so much to discuss with thi…
I was lucky enough to see the original Out of Joint production of The Permanent Way at the National Theatre in 2003. I remember being horrified by David Hare's verbatim play about railway…
Can you be a racist if you don't think you are? Is there a difference between racism and 'racist attitudes'? How do you find sympathy for white supremacists? By finding sympathy are we makin…
What fun to return to the Criterion Theatre to see a brand-new cast put their stamp on Mischief Theatre's The Comedy About A Bank Robbery, as the first in a series of monthly post-show Q&…
At this year's annual HighTide Festival in Aldeburgh, Suffolk, I was privileged to chair an hour-long "In Conversation With" platform discussion with legendary director Deborah Warner, refle…
A middle-aged businesswoman hires a blind man to spend an hour with her in a hotel room. Why are they really there? Will she be able to experience the darkness in order to see the light? The…
Are you worried about the state of politics and society in the UK today? That's the question I asked at the start of last night's post-show Q&A at London's Lion & Unicorn Theatre.Â�…
Arrows & Traps' 18th production in its five-year history is also its tenth at London's Brockley Jack Theatre, where it is now an associate company, and its third in a Gothic trilogy. And…