Showstopper! The (Socially Distanced!) Improvised Musical - ★★★★ - Until August 30, 2020


'Adapt and change' seems to be the way forward for theatre in 2020. Showstopper!, which has been running successfully in the West End for several seasons with an Olivier Award already under its belt, has created hundreds of improvised musicals before our eyes and ears. This, however, is its first foray into online entertainment and, judging by the audience feedback, it will prove very popular. Four very talented performers – Ruth Bratt, Justin Brett, Pippa Evans and Adam Megiddo, backed by Duncan Walsh Atkins and Alex Atty in the band – work incredibly hard creating and linking songs in the style of favourites from Hamilton, Les Miserables and many more. We also enjoy seeing them flesh out the flimsiest of plots as suggested by audience members; on this occasion, the story involved a hot air balloon trip and time travel. The reimagined format is obviously still unfamiliar to the performers and without a live audience the show takes a while to get into its stride, but by the second act everything was coming together very well. It is the nature of the beast that the songs will be derivative but that is part of the fun, and it does demonstrate the difficultly of writing a good show tune that doesn't sound like a thousand others. Technically the production is a great success with excellent use of split screens and terrific editing by Andrew Pugsley, who also hosted the evening. Showstopper! is a joyous romp and as the optimistic finale proclaims: “We know our happiness will see us through.”

 Reviewed by D.S.J.
Photo by Hugo Glendinning.

 Our Score:  ☆☆☆☆ 

 Want to save on tickets? See our Tips page.

 WHEN, WHERE, GETTING THERE:
Until August 30, 2020
Showstopper Productions Ltd (online)
Various show times available at:
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/showstopper

Most Popular

Savage ★★ White Bear Theatre | Feb 25 - Mar 15, 2026

Image
Savage confronts a historically shocking and distressingly contemporary issue: the targeting of homosexual men with conversion therapy. The play recounts the horrific experiments carried out under the Nazi regime in Denmark to "cure" homosexuality and tells the true story of Dr Vaernet, who collaborated with Hitler’s regime in the belief that sexual orientation could be changed. This historical reality is dramatised through the story of Nikolai, a young Danish man, and his American lover, Zack. While Zack manages to escape the Nazi experiments, Nikolai endures them. Regrettably, this crucial historical legacy is presented simplistically and didactically. The characters are one-dimensional, and the plot is entirely predictable. The revelation that the Nazi persecutor of Nikolai is himself gay is unsurprising. It is almost a cliché that much homophobia is driven by repression of one’s own desires.The play’s simplistic characterisation is exacerbated by the production. Despite ...
Full Details »

St. Martin in-the-fields: Lunchtime Concerts ★★★★ FREE

Image
Maybe the best musical value in London. The lunchtime concerts at St. Martin's are always a wonderful way to escape the hustle and bustle that is London and the sensory overload that is Trafalgar Square. This is a beautiful setting with great acoustics, and a church pew hard enough to make sure you don't nod off. Reviewed by J.C.  Our score:    ☆☆☆☆  WHEN, WHERE, GETTING THERE: Mon & Fri: 1 pm - 1:45 pm ( occasionally Tues & Thurs)  St. Martin in-the-fields, Trafalgar Square Nearest tube: Charing Cross https://www.stmartin-in-the-fields.org/whats-on
Full Details »

The Holy Rosenbergs ★★★★★ Menier Chocolate Factory | Feb 27 - May 2, 2026

Image
In 2011, Ryan Craig wrote a play about the first Gaza war of 2009. The work carries an even deeper resonance in today’s fraught political climate. David Rosenberg once ran a successful Jewish catering business, but he has fallen on hard times after a rumour spread through the neighbourhood that his food caused a woman’s death by food poisoning. His wife Lesley believes they should leave the area that has now turned its back on them, but David is determined to restore his reputation. The fact that their son died defending Israel is seen as a way of re-establishing the family’s standing among those around them. Yet their daughter’s involvement in an inquiry that may bring charges against the Jewish state for its conduct during the 2009 Gaza war threatens this fragile hope of acceptance. The family’s predicament becomes a microcosm of a larger dilemma. At what point do the rewards of belonging to a family, a community, or a nation demand a loyalty that endangers personal integrity, and ho...
Full Details »

Iolanthe ★★★★★ Wilton's Music Hall | Feb 17 - 28, 2026

Image
Gilbert and Sullivan’s Iolanthe , or The Peer and the Peri premiered in 1882 to warm acclaim from critics and the public alike. In 2020 Charles Court Opera unveiled its imaginative reworking of the classic, but the Covid pandemic curtailed its run after only four preview performances. Now returning to London and accompanied by the Charles Court Opera Chamber Orchestra, this judiciously refreshed production deserves nothing less than the wholehearted enthusiasm that greeted the original. The opera’s satire of the House of Lords and the British legal system remains deliciously pointed. When the assembled peers discover that there exists a social order superior to their own, both more capricious and more powerful than they could ever hope to be, their pomposity is punctured with exquisite precision. Within the framework of a tender love story between Strephon, half mortal and half fairy, and his beloved Phyllis, Gilbert deftly and lightheartedly exposes the absurdities of those who presu...
Full Details »

Mary, Queen of Scots ★★★★★ Sadler's Wells Theatre | March 5 - 8, 2026

Image
In 2019, to celebrate its 50th-anniversary season, Scottish Ballet commissioned five new works. The fifth and final of these, Mary, Queen of Scots , is choreographed by the company’s resident choreographer Sophie Laplane with an original score by Mikael Karlsson and Michael P. Atkinson. The result is a work of striking theatrical imagination and choreographic ambition. The ballet unfolds in the winter of Elizabeth I’s life. The ageing queen looks back on her turbulent relationship with her cousin Mary and the chain of events that ultimately led to Mary’s execution at Elizabeth’s command. Memory merges with imagination throughout the narrative. While the broad sweep of history remains intact, the work allows itself moments of poetic licence that deepen its emotional resonance. We first encounter Mary at the French court where she marries Francis II. His death leaves her estranged from her formidable mother-in-law Catherine and forces her return to Scotland. She is accompanied by the mus...
Full Details »

ABBA Voyage ★★★★★ ABBA Arena, Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park | Extended Run

Image
When great music from the past meets mind boggling technology from the future, the result is ABBA Voyage . This is a concert like no other. In a purpose built arena designed specifically for the show, massive high resolution LED screens, advanced lighting, and surround sound are used to create a fully immersive ABBA concert experience. Although the group’s last appearance in London was at Wembley Arena in 1979, they return technologically in this extraordinary production. These are not holograms or AI generated performances. This is a meticulously animated concert based on real performances by the band themselves. To achieve this effect, the group came together and re-performed their music using motion capture technology. They partnered with top visual effects experts to digitally recreate their younger selves. While the show includes a live band and backup singers, the Agnetha, Björn, Benny, and Anni-Frid seen on stage appear every bit as real as their original counterparts. One quick...
Full Details »

Double Indemnity ★★★ Richmond Theatre | March 3 - 7, 2026

Image
James M. Cain’s tale of murder and betrayal remains a classic of hard boiled crime fiction. Younger audiences may not remember Double Indemnity , Billy Wilder’s extraordinary film noir starring Fred MacMurray as the smart aleck insurance salesman drawn into a murderous scheme by the ultimate femme fatale, played by Barbara Stanwyck. In this stage adaptation, Tom Holloway has altered the names of the two central characters slightly, but their personalities remain recognisably the same. As the fast talking operator who is thoroughly outmanoeuvred by a seductive schemer, Ciarán Evans serves as both narrator and protagonist. For the most part he captures the stylised delivery associated with the genre, though there are moments when the performance tips from deliberate artifice into something that feels a little forced. The production also struggles with its central relationship. Mischa Barton cannot quite match Stanwyck’s glacial brilliance, and her seductive power and calculated manipulat...
Full Details »

Arcadia ★★★★★ The Old Vic | Jan 24 - Mar 21, 2026

Image
This splendid revival of Tom Stoppard’s masterpiece is definitely one of this year’s must-see productions. Intellectually demanding yet fizzing with wit, the play is brought vividly to life by a uniformly outstanding ensemble. Seamus Dillane is superb as the rakish tutor Septimus Hodge, delivering a performance of effortless charm and sly intelligence, while Matthew Steer is irresistibly funny as the mock poet/scientist and hapless cuckold Ezra Chater. Isis Hainsworth is luminous as the prodigy Thomasina, blending youthful grace with startling intellectual authority, and Fiona Button is deliciously bold as her mother, the gloriously predatory Lady Croom. Set in both the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Arcadia explores how we confront death and search for meaning in our lives. Its title suggests Poussin's pastoral painting with the tombstone in its foreground, et in Arcadia ego . Faced with this existential problem, the play suggests two possible routes to understanding: scienc...
Full Details »

Hawaiʻi: a kingdom crossing oceans ★★★★ The British Museum | Jan 15 - May 25, 2026

Image
This small yet thoughtful exhibition explores the long-standing connections between two island nations. The relationship between Britain and Hawaiʻi dates back to Captain James Cook’s third voyage in 1778. He became the first European to document contact with the Pacific archipelago and that connection still resonates today, most visibly in the Hawaiian state flag (Ka Hae Hawaiʻi), which continues to display the Union Jack in its top-left corner. This display at the British Museum draws primarily on the museum’s own extensive collections, complemented by judicious loans from other institutions, including the Bishop Museum in Hawaiʻi. It is organised into three main sections: Laying a foundation, Allying kingdoms , and Reshaping relationships . The first section introduces visitors to Hawaiʻi's distinctive art, history, and cultural traditions. The second focuses on the 1824 visit of King Kamehameha II (also known as Liholiho) and Queen Kamāmalu to London, and on their tragic deaths...
Full Details »

Samurai ★★★★★ The British Museum | Feb 3 - May 4, 2026

Image
“Samurai.” The word conjures images of fierce Japanese warriors in elaborate helmets with swords drawn, but this superb presentation reveals that there is far more to know about this class that came to dominate Japan’s political life and whose legacy still lingers in many aspects of contemporary culture. Structured in three sections, Rise of the Samurai AD 800 to 1600, The Long Peace 1600 to the 1850s and After the Samurai 1876 to the present , the exhibition demonstrates the importance of the samurai, both men and women, not only in warfare but also in the governance and cultural development of Japan. Bringing together more than two hundred and eighty objects from twenty nine lenders, the show offers a rich array of flamboyant helmets and intricate armour, alongside depictions of combat in scrolls by masters such as Hiroshige. There are also revealing glimpses behind the public image the samurai sought to project. Displays of smoking accoutrements, a popular pastime for both male and ...
Full Details »

The City Life Magazine | Reviews & Ratings