504 stories by "Jonathan Baz"
Ramps On The Moon's production of Tommy, directed by Kerry Michael, is a truly wonderful production. As the rock opera created by The Who is famously about a "deaf, dumb and blind kid", so d…
These Trees Are Made of Blood is quite the title, and "political musical cabaret" is quite the concept. Inspired by the director's study year in Buenos Aires and the harrowing yet inspiring …
Set in the 1180's, King Richard the Lionheart (played by Neil Moors) proclaims he will set off on a Crusade, and go to war with Saladin in the Middle East, leaving the county in the hands o…
Jim Steinman's Bat Out Of Hell has just landed in the West End and with no intention of being a quiet neighbour in theatreland either. From the onset the audience are confronted with an imme…
Andrew Scott's take on Hamlet, in Robert Icke's Almeida production that has just transferred to the West End, is a testament to the versatility of Shakespeare's prose. With Benedict Cumberba…
Alexandra Silber's first novel After Anatevka is a carefully crafted study into love and life in Russia in the early twentieth century. Much like Marc Chagall was to paint enchanted images o…
With a story that, in principle, is timeless Bromance is all about the beer, the ball games and the bravado that fuels male bonding. Tom, Dick and Harry are three buddies whose friendship ex…
It is remarkable how the mundane, simple and modest elements of hard graft, so often taken for granted, become the catalyst for the way you think and live your life, despite your best effort…
Any new musical from either Stephen Schwartz or Lin-Manuel Miranda makes for big news - so it is even more intriguing and exciting that this week at Southwark Playhouse sees Working make its…
The idea that opera can pop-up is delightful and Pop-Up Opera's simple approach to the genre, even more so. It's no wonder Cimarosa's Il Matrimonio Segreto, or The Secret Marriage, is his gr…
The Color Purple's book, movie and musical have all told the extraordinary story of a Celie, a brutally oppressed woman who against all odds, overcomes racism, abuse and misogyny to find her…
Long before the era of the modern day jukebox musical, Hollywood was already hard at work re-hashing classic George and Ira Gershwin numbers from the 20s and weaving them into Vincente Minne…
Adapted by N. Richard Nash from his original play The Rainmaker, 110 In The Shade tells the story of Lizzie Curry, an intelligent lonely woman, living in a small town in the western USA that…
Highlights from the evening were excerpts from The Wonderful Musician, two specific numbers from Gould's most recent project performed by Hywel Dowsell and new graduate Danny Michaels. The p…
From the moment the overtures commences with the iconic clicks from the cartoon/TV series the audiences are not only on side but clicking along. The story, characters and settings are iconic…
Set around the dinner table of the bereaved parents, their guests for the evening are Bill and Tamara Dermot together with their son Curtis, a peer of Joel's at school and the ringleader of …
There's a magnificent story behind The Braille Legacy. Louis Braille, the blind French boy who applied himself to developing a language of tactile dots that brought literature to the sightle…
It's rare to watch a West End musical that is so wonderfully British - and Half a Sixpence really is just that, in so many ways. The direction, choreography and music of the piece frame the …
Rodgers and Hammerstein considered Carousel to be their finest work. The show is this year's semi-staged Coliseum offering from Michaels Grade and Linnit and they have laid on a sumptuously …
In the unnamed town that the five characters inhabit, any hope or joy is promptly quashed and left in a pool of despair on the floor, just like the mysteriously dying rats that plague the st…
One wonders if McDonald, being such an idolised performer in the world of musical theatre can live up to the sheer gravitas behind her name and will deliver?
The script is sprinkled with as many songs as anecdotes " who knew for example that Bart could not write music? He would hum out a tune on his kazoo, while his good friend Eric Roberts (who …
If you need convincing that women can be just as derogatory, obtuse and vulgar as certain men can sometimes be, get your bottom down to the Pleasance Theatre in Islington and check out Posh,…
42nd Street at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane is a feast of musical theatre. This revival of the 1980s show, itself inspired by the 1930s recession busting movie of the same name, is nothing l…
Cy Coleman has a fine track record of taking an acerbic view of iconic American cities. With City Of Angels his score parodied a film noir view of Los Angeles - and here, with The Life, he p…
