2019 production images Local boy Jack Wilcox is disco dynamite, strutting his stuff as cock of the walk Tony Manero in the new UK tour of Saturday Night Fever that opened last night at Milton Keynes Theatre. He bumps and grinds, pops, thrusts and gyrates to The Bee Gees’ infectious soundtrack that had the audience jiggling in their seats. It’s hard to sit still when You Should Be Dancing. Producer & director Bill Kenwright has taken the iconic film that made John Travolta a star and come up with a surefire hit jukebox musical. And this revival of his 2019 production is a real crowd-please ..read more

The Royal & Derngate Northampton, one of the country’s major producing houses, has announced its upcoming season of 18 productions covering the next 12 months. Its Made in Northampton season encompasses plays, musicals, a feature film, on-demand theatre, podcasts and a new interactive digital work.  The season engages over 400 artists and visits 45 theatres across the UK, with 10 productions transferring to London.  Newly announced world premieres include mainstage productions of Playtime, Unexpected Twist, Wuthering Heights, Henry V and And Then There Were None. Jo Gordon, chi ..read more

Ian Hislop and writing partner Nick Newman’s new comedy drama, Spike (now on tour), tells the story of the young Spike Milligan. Here they tell Stage Review how the show was created. Nick Newman [NN]: We wanted to write something about Spike to coincide with the centenary of his birth –we didn’t quite hit that deadline, but we made it for his 104th!  From the outset, we wanted it to be a celebration. There are too many biopics of comedians that tell the ‘tears of a clown’ story. And while you can’t escape Spike’s mental health issues, for us that was something that we saw as powering hi ..read more

There’s a whiff of sulphur in the air at the Southwark Playhouse where Ricky Dukes’ wickedly inventive take on Christopher Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus for Lazarus Theatre Company which opened this week. In Marlowe’s original 1593 text Faustus is a scholar at the University of Wittenberg who, bored with conventional learning, turns to necromancy. He is visited by Mephistopheles who offers him a contract for 24 years of service in return for his eternal soul. This version is a contemporary take with a pastiche of styles ranging from vaudeville to Japanese horror and punctuated with stylised movem ..read more

It was my first visit to the Brockley Jack Studio Theatre so when I walked in for Persephone last night and found three actresses lying semi-supine with projected underwater film footage and earth music playing in the background I initially thought I’d wandered into a yoga class by mistake. In the ancient Greek myth Persephone, also known as Cora, is the daughter of Zeus and Demeter. She became the Queen of the Underworld after her abduction by her uncle Hades, god of the underworld. In this Arrows & Traps version the story moves to a typical, modern-day, dysfunctional family. Earth-mumm ..read more

Marylebone’s The Cockpit will look across the Atlantic this autumn bringing a season of New York plays to the heart of London.  Two major productions lead the season: one, a classic revival of Lanford Wilson’s Talley’s Folley; the other, an exciting new musical based on the life and legacy of Rita Hayworth.  There will also be theatrical readings of a diverse range of plays by Pulitzer Prize-winning New York based playwrights such as Annie Baker, Jeremy O. Harris and Sarah Ruhl.   The Cockpit’s New York Voices programme asks to what extent New York still leads the way.&nb ..read more

It’s time to break out those flares and platform shoes. Tony Manero returns in a new UK tour of Saturday Night Fever, opening at Milton Keynes Theatre on Monday with Jack Wilcox, a former employee, in the starring role. Direct from the West End Saturday Night Fever showcases the music of the Bee Gees and the story of Tony Manero, as he embarks on the road to dancing success. It’s a homage to the 1977 John Travolta classic with more drama, more music, and hot new choreography and features onstage actor-musicians in the roles of the Bee Gees. Jack Wilcox leads the cast as Manero ..read more

The classic song-and-dance spectacular 42nd Street is making a comeback in a new production announced today. The Curve and Sadler’s Wells production of the musical will open at Curve theatre, Leicester in May followed by a season at Sadler’s Wells ahead of a UK tour with touring dates to be announced soon. This new production will be directed by Jonathan Church (Singin’ in the Rain, The Drifters Girl) with choreography and design by Olivier Award winners Bill Deamer and Rob Jones.  The show features a hit parade of toe-tapping songs, including the title number, We’re In The Money, Lullab ..read more

Dazzling showgirls in glittering costumes and crazy cowpokes swinging their gals on pickaxes. Crazy For You, the fabulous five star musical which opened at Chichester Festival Theatre this week is a triumph with a joyous, uplifting, doozy of a show to celebrate its 60th birthday. This madcap romcom, set in the hicksville backwater of Deadrock Nevada (pop. 37), is a sheer delight from its dazzling Vegas-style opener to its spectacular finale. And in-between there’s laughs-a-plenty, slapstick routines, extraordinary choreography, a playlist of George & Ira Gershwin’s famous songs, a love s ..read more

The cut and thrust of the newspaper industry makes damning headlines in the return of Farine Clarke’s award-winning satire, London Zoo, at the Bread & Roses Theatre, Clapham, next month. The pacy parody whose five-night sell-out inaugural run last year earned two major awards and wowed audiences, builds on its earlier success with a longer run, a new director – Catriona Clancy – a revised cast and fresh set. Enter the hysterical world of manipulation, secrecy, insincerity and the subtleties of prejudicial layers. Farine Clarke It’s the dawn of the new millennium; print newspapers are in c ..read more