Carousel ★★★★ Regent's Park Open Air Theatre | Jul 31 - Sep 25, 2021


Carousel is one of the very greatest pieces of musical theatre. Every song is in a minor key and is subtly instilled with a sense of yearning and of the tragedy to come. The whole show stands or falls on the casting of Julie and Billy, and here we are lucky to have the totally believable Carly Bawden and Declan Bennett acting and singing superbly. Bennett's seven minute "Soliloquy" is pitched perfectly as the young wildcat is tamed by the realisation that he is to become a father – something he is ill-prepared for. Bawden brings a sense of foreboding before truly tugging at the heartstrings as she loses her husband. Joanna Riding, herself an award-winning Julie, is tremendous as cousin Nettie – feisty and fun before stunning us with a moving rendition of "You'll Never Walk Alone." The huge company was beautifully disposed over Tom Scutt's steeply raked set, creating many wonderfully striking pictures. Drew McOnie's witty choreography uses the constantly spinning revolve extremely well. There are so many things which director Timothy Sheader gets right that it almost feels ungrateful to say that we really didn't like the revised final section of the show. We felt that revisiting an interpretation of the 'heavenly' scenes which had been rejected before the Broadway opening was unhelpful and confusing; Rodgers and Hammerstein were masters of their art and could have been trusted with their final version. However, whilst the superb cast held hands and the stage revolved there were tears in many eyes.

Rated: ★★★★

Reviewed by D.S.J.
Photo by Johan-Persson.

Want to save on tickets? See our Tips page.

When, Where, Getting there:
Map & Location: The Regent's Park, Inner Cir, London NW1 4NU, UK

Most Popular

The Way Old Friends Do ★★★★ Park Theatre | Mar 15 - Apr 15, 2023

Image
This show has a hilarious premise and some great one-liners. Two old friends who've drifted apart meet again and decide to form an ABBA tribute band. The hook is that they will play the female parts and the men will be played by two very different women. The laughs come easily as we see the situation develop and enjoy the idea of this wonderfully weird tribute band. However, the first act is taken up with the establishment of the premise and the creation of the characters, and it ends with us not really knowing where we are going. In contrast, the second act is crammed with a plot that is an amusing take on All About Eve and which again results in the friends being estranged. While both acts are great fun, the play's construction seems awkward. It might have been stronger if the plot dilemma had been introduced in Act I. Putting that issue aside however, all of the cast create delightfully eccentric characters who thoroughly engage the audience. James Bradshaw is outstanding
Full Details »

Bonnie & Clyde ★★★★ Garrick Theatre | Mar 4 - May 20, 2023

Image
Bonnie & Clyde returns to the West End with all guns blazing! From the opening musical sequence we are brilliantly situated in the world of the Great Depression. The desperation that leads Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow into their life of crime is palpable, and the disenchantment with the bankrupt American Dream, plus the infatuation with celebrity, which will make them folk heroes is established. It is abundantly clear why faced with little hope for a better life, the title characters, who see themselves as Billy the Kid and Clara Bow, decide to take control of their lives and to become the romantic figures who inspire them. As Bonnie and Clyde, Frances Mayli McCann and Jordan Luke Gage do a splendid job of conveying the recklessness and aspiration of youth, and their singing does justice to a great score from Don Black and Frank Wildhorn. Songs like "This World Will Remember Me" and "Dyin' Ain't So Bad" are destined to become classics. As the cautious
Full Details »

The Great British Bake Off Musical ★★★★ Noël Coward Theatre | Until May 13, 2023

Image
The television show that became an international phenomenon has now come to the stage. When The Great British Bake Off first aired in 2010 it received mixed reviews. However, it has proven to have a winning recipe and now boasts imitators from Argentina to Romania. The Bake Off tent offers a delightful refuge from the stresses of the real world, inviting one into a place where crisis is defined as a pastry with a soggy bottom. Here the contestants are generally positive and supportive in the putative competition and the spirit of good fellowship and bonhomie abounds. This current musical descendant of the television series seeks to emulate the original's gentle good humour, sly innuendo and sunny spirit and it does quite a good job. There is a love story, a redemption narrative and affirmation of the human spirit as people find confidence and acceptance through baking. Charlotte Wakefield brings a powerful voice to her role as the unconfident Gemma who is brought out of her shell
Full Details »

Oklahoma! ★★★★ Wyndham’s Theatre | Until September 2, 2023

Image
If you've never seen Oklahoma! before, you are in for a very special experience. If you know previous productions, put your preconceptions aside. This is a unique look at Rodgers and Hammerstein's classic that brings out the unexplored depth of the work. Without changing the original script, this Oklahoma! exposes all the complexity and darkness that underlies the two love triangles that form the narrative. The relationship of Curly, Laurey and Jud juxtaposes the convention of flirtation and sexual repression with the terror of sexual obsession, while the relationship of Will, Ado Annie and Ali Hakim comically presents the opposition of sexual promiscuity and the requirement for marriage. In the end, the outsiders, Jud and Ali Hakim, are both punished for their threat to social norms, and the two couples are able to reconcile their individual desires with the demands of society. However, while the cost of that compromise is comic in one case, it is quite horrific in the other
Full Details »

Leaving Vietnam ★★★★ Park Theatre | Mar 14 - Apr 8, 2023

Image
America may have left Vietnam, but it is arguable if the wound which that war left on the American psyche has ever healed. This monologue of a Vietnam veteran shows how the alienation created by that conflict leads in a direct line to the enormous political problems that bedevil the country today. The sense of manipulation and betrayal by political leaders and the ensuing dislocation caused by economic globalisation are the progenitors of the renewed populism and isolationism that characterise the current political climate. In his monologue, Richard Vergette captures this reality by focussing on the story of one decent, working class veteran who is traumatised by his war experience and bewildered by the world that he inherits. The main strength of the play is the individualisation and personalisation of the American political dilemma in the character of Jimmy, but the work also has an engaging dramatic arc of development that is both heartening and hopeful. Vergette gives a powerful pe
Full Details »

Seeta Patel Dance – The Rite of Spring ★★★★ Sadler's Wells Theatre | March 13 - 14, 2023

Image
Seeta Patel's The Rite of Spring is an extraordinary marriage of the classical South Indian dance form of bharatanatyam with Stravinsky's iconic work. Patel breathes new life into the well-known piece, while also offering a fascinating insight into the similarity and difference of Indian and western dance cultures. In the first half of the programme, Patel performs a solo bharatanatyam work, Shree , which introduces the vocabulary of the Indian dance form and presents a contrasting interpretation of the arrival of spring to the one we shall see later. Wayne Sables' evocative video projections create the darkness of a winter which gradually recedes as vocals, drums and finally a flute evoke the coming of the earth's rebirth. Patel emerges in bright spring colours and, using the geometric movements of the South Indian dance plus mime, she creates a gentle and joyous celebration of the seasonal cycle. Its mystery is conveyed in Samyukta Ranganathan’s haunting vocals, i
Full Details »

The Bodyguard ★★★★ New Wimbledon Theatre | March 6 - 11, 2023

Image
Take some unforgettable songs and some great performances and wrap them in a paper thin thriller plot: you've got The Bodyguard . If you are a Whitney Houston fan, you are in for a treat. This version delivers exactly what you'd expect and Melody Thornton does a superb job of interpreting all the great hits. Thornton almost never leaves the stage, and she carries the show with her amazing vocals. The narrative of a megastar threatened by an unbalanced fan and forced to hire a bodyguard is totally predictable. There is an immediate clash of personalities, so no surprise about how all that is going to end. The audience is here because they know and love these songs, and they are equally comfortable with a retelling of the standard romcom story in a slightly different context. It is all satisfyingly familiar and very well done. Director, Thea Sharrock keeps it all moving at a great pace and the big production numbers are well staged. The choreography is wonderfully energetic and
Full Details »

Farm Hall ★★★★ Jermyn Street Theatre | Mar 9 - Apr 8, 2023

Image
A play about six physicists talking – it's an unlikely premise for drama, but it proves to be a fascinating evening. Based on true events, Farm Hall looks at the experience of six of Germany's scientific elite who were held in a home in the Cambridge countryside at the end of WWII. Cut off from communication with the outside world, their activities were limited and their conversations were recorded. Katherine Moar's debut play is composed of moments illuminating their characters, their interpersonal dynamics and their views on everything from the connection between science and politics to their taste in music and games. Discussion wanders from imagining the love story of their unseen guardian to imagining a world in which Germany develops the atomic bomb. However, that conversation takes on a darker tone when news of the Americans' use of such a weapon is announced. The complex relationship between science and politics and the scientist's individual moral responsib
Full Details »

The Journey to Venice ★★★★ Finborough Theatre | Feb 28 - Mar 25, 2023

Image
Bjørg Vik's glimpse into the lives of an elderly couple living on their memories won the Ibsen prize in 1992. It is a poignant meditation on the joys and struggles of old age and is brilliantly interpreted by Annabel Leventon and Tim Hardy. The two actors stunningly bring to life Edith and Oscar Tellmann and their small world of books, bills, cats and imaginary journeys. On the particular day we share with them, their travels are interrupted, and ultimately shared, by two young visitors. Nathan Welsh plays a sympathetic young plumber, with a charming voice, who comes to look at their pipes, and Charlotte Beaumont is the engagingly scatterbrained carer who has been recently assigned to them. Both of these young actors get the tone just right, and their characters' preoccupations provide an interesting generational counterpoint to those of the elderly couple. Director Wiebke Green does a beautiful job of telling the simple and undramatic story of the Tellmanns' current life.
Full Details »

Romeo and Julie ★★★ National Theatre | Feb 14 - Apr 1, 2023

Image
Unlike Shakespeare's teenage lovers separated by feuding families, this young couple are divided by their educational opportunities and potential for social mobility. In this version, Romeo has left school and is trying to raise a child while living at home with an alcoholic mother. He is kind and loving, but not overly bright or ambitious. Julie, on the other hand, is a good student who has a place at Cambridge and who aspires to be a physicist working on the Theory of Everything. She carries the aspirations of her parents, while he deals with challenges of a bleak home environment in which he is acting as a single parent. The only things that this narrative has in common with its Shakespearean counterpart is its title and the fact that it deals with a blighted romance. Unfortunately, for us, the relationship between the two principals remained unconvincing, moving too quickly from a bit of banter in a café to infatuation. Julie's transition from ambitious self-controlled stud
Full Details »

The City Life Magazine | Reviews & Ratings