299 stories by "Johnny Fox"
There are some gay men through whom the word 'Judy' runs like a stick of cheap rock. To question their devotion to the long-deceased Ms Garland is to adopt the same dangerous stance as conte…
What do we know about Rudolph Nureyev? He was the most famous male ballet dancer of his generation, defected from the Soviet Union to the West, partnered Margot Fonteyn hundreds of times and…
In April last year, the delightful Lyric Hammersmith reopened with a commendably well-structured stage version of Bugsy Malone. Great production values, props, costumes, fight direction and …
Guest reviewer: Dan Frost The long-awaited stage production of Disney’s Aladdin certainly gets an A for effort. Transferring from Broadway with much hyped attached, it’s an Arabi…
A struggling writer has an obsessive interest in wine. I don't know anyone who could identify with that. When the movie Sideways came out in 2004, the lead character's preference for Pinot N…
You can blame The Thick of It " Mark Ravenhill's ferociously foul-mouthed opener revived from 2007 in which a young soldier's wife deflects the news of his death with c*nt after c*nt really …
Five rules for survival at Threepenny Opera: ONE: It’s an epic musical on a revolve, so think Les Miserables set in London any time since, but influenced by Sondheim bec…
'You can't start with a pause' says Birdboot to Moon at the top of Tom Stoppard's The Real Inspector Hound, but Mike Poulton and director Lucy Bailey disprove this most successfully as Paul …
In 1975 Emmylou Harris might have walked all the way from Boulder to Birmingham but in 1842 a weedy, tweedy small-town teacher and small-time socialist named George Holyoake actually walked …
Hot recommendations for summer theatregoing: Doctor Faustus, A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Toxic Avenger, The Threepenny Opera...
The Landor Theatre has made an occasional departure from its repertoire of well-focused chamber-sized revivals to host an original creation called Devilish. Possibly with an exclamation mar…
Well, it is, but the only bits I recognised were the first act pact with the devil and the final scene, because for his arresting production of Doctor Faustus, director Jamie Lloyd allowed t…
The Beeb wheeled out Peter Capaldi for its launch of A Midsummer Night's Dream due to air on BBC1 at the end of May. Not because he's in it but because the entire play, adapted to an 'access…
Last night an enthusiastic London audience celebrated the end of the run of an American musical diva born in 1947 whose career has touched millions.
'At this evening's performance, the title role will be played by …' Understudy. Somewhere between a trending topic and a dirty word as arguments rage over whether or not audiences should b…
In 1927, Jerome Kern shifted the shape of musical theatre from twee operetta to a tighter fusion of music with drama. He also designed Show Boat as a slap in the face to complacent audiences…
This is a return to grand form for Lipman whose natural comic timing is best deployed undercutting the more strident statements and hinting at the unvoiced disappointments of marital life. S…
Haram Iran is such a brave departure from Above The Stag's usual diet of gaydar-dating comedies and slight musicals. The execution of two teenage boys in Mashhad, the second city of Iran, os…
At the car wash today and even though it was quiet and they wanted to chat, I avoided saying 'where are you from' to the five guys lavishing ten minutes' soapy attention on my bodywork. Acco…
What's Matthew Perry's play like without Matthew Perry in it? Jonny McPherson scores initially simply for not being Matthew Perry " but that's not an insult, it's an observation that through…
The night after Imelda Staunton picked up her Olivier award for best actress in a musical in Gypsy, her successor is a rock solid certainty. With such tumultuous reception at the Coliseum, t…
It's not often theatre reviews are bad enough to make BBC lunchtime headlines, but the writers of Miss Atomic Bomb should be donning their tin hats. When London's most enthusiastic musical t…
This is a BOGOF worthy of Ben Rimalower's beloved discount store Target: his two one-hour monologues Patti Issues and Bad With Money ran separately off Broadway " the paean of love to Ms Lup…
This is Ben. See Ben run. See Ben play on X-Box. See Ben go to Syria. Lucinda Burnett's clever concept, Correspondence, is smartly staged at the Old Red Lion and blessed with a credible and …
Old theatrical war horses don't come any older, warty or horsier than The Mousetrap. The longest running show in the history of theatre has recently licenced a national tour alongside its 63…
