Experimental art is usually synonymous with forbidding high seriousness. The outstanding exception to that is the consistently inventive yet audience-friendly theatre of
I've seen the belated London premiere of a Broadway musical and I have a bone to pick, but first: Harry Secombe. I'll
"I think the people in this country have had enough of experts…" So opined Michael Gove to Sky News' Faisal Islam on
Unlike musicals, so-called straight dramas don't do showstoppers. Even a speech as famous as "To be or not to be" won't elicit
If Broadway plays are notorious for taking a long time to address contemporary mores, Broadway musicals are slower still. This made the
Musical theatre is good for your health. Look at Jule Styne, composer of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, Gypsy and beyond. He was working
Angela Lansbury, furiously lit up with self-belief, slaying the audience as she devoured Rose's Turn in Gypsy; Elaine Stritch weaving seamlessly in
In the Olympics of Great Movie Taglines, I long ago declared a dead heat between the two horror pictures The Dentist 2
Anyone lucky enough to have seen Ian Rickson's magnetic recent production of Duncan Macmillan's version of Ibsen's Rosmersholm at the Duke of
Long before the current row about the Society of London Theatre possibly limiting the number of producers eligible for Olivier award statuettes,
At the risk of appearing pernickety (or, intriguingly, for American readers, persnickety) there are theatreland words and phrases I truly loathe. Jostling
"Everybody's pickin' up on that feline beat." That was Floyd Huddleston and Al Rinker's thinking in 1970 when they wrote the line
Regrets, as Frank Sinatra was given to singing, I've had a few, but then again is missing the musical Time among them?
While some musical theatre aficionados, myself included, know more than our fair share about queens, we know rather less about the Queen's.
Multi-instrumentalist Mike Davis has played for shows from Follies and Gypsy to Grease and Everybody's Talking About Jamie. He tells David Benedict
"Never does one understand so well the failure of women in art as when one sees them deliberately impersonating men upon the
Over an eye-widening 32 seasons, Kirstie and Phil have consistently reminded us of the importance of location, location, location. What they have
It was songwriter Irving Berlin who, in 1946 for his Annie Get Your Gun, taught the world that: "There's no business like
When someone buys me a theatrical time machine, the first place I shall travel to will be the opening of Harold Pinter's
Theatre, in days gone by, made its own stars. Neon lights shone with the names of actors whose careers had been made
"Ladies, this is your final call." Emilia, the rumbustious, fiercely feminist biographical drama of Shakespeare's 'dark lady of the sonnets', closes on
Musical theatre quiz: hands up who knows the names and jobs of Roger Allers and Irene Mecchi. Hint: their work has been
"I do not at any point, in any way whatsoever, think of myself as a Jewish writer, except that I happen to
I'm guessing that not many of you know the name Ervin Drake, but he wrote Frank Sinatra's regretful hit It Was a
I've always considered it a shame that although one can emerge from the theatre disappointed, in the opposite circumstance one cannot say: