302 stories by "Louise Penn"
The scene is set at Balliol College, Oxford, in 1910. A group of exceptional young men finish their education as the shadow of war slowly approaches.
It's been ten years since Bring It On was first made into a musical. These days it has an interest as a piece of Lin-Manuel Miranda juvenilia, pre-Hamilton and co-created with others.
Mama G is back with her special brand of storytelling, this time in picture book format. Dick Whittington is the story of a young man seeking asylum in a country where it is OK to be gay.
With two hours of acts ranging from catchers to aerialists, jugglers to puppet elephants, teeterboard leapers to hula hoopers, Circus 1903 has something for everyone.
Although the show deals with death and grief, it is done in a sensitive way you can explain to a child.
Clare Bloomer is Tracy, fifty years old and stuck in her kitchen making Christmas dinner for her extended family (all 21 of them).
Following the success of 2019 'slumber party panto' Goldilocks and the Three Musketeers, Sleeping Trees are back for a live residency of mayhem, song, and storytelling in the Council Chamber…
We meet Vanya and Sonia in their morning room, which overlooks the pond. We are in America, and they wait for the daily appearance of the blue heron.
Named by parents who loved Che…
You know the story of how two Cambridge students, Toby Marlow and Lucy Moss (who also directs) created this Tudor "herstory", took it to Edinburgh, and recently opened it after COVID delays …
When you take your seats at the Chiswick Playhouse, you note how richly detailed the set is for Love Dance. We are in a flat which is presumably a decent one-bed set-up with a shared living/…
Marsha Norman's 1981 play won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama on its debut, and remains one of the best plays I have read on the page, long before I saw it acted.
The story of Jessie Cat…
Pete is lonely. His dad is sick, his mother dead, his job boring. His only love is his cello, until he connects to Angie through a lonelyhearts ad.
Morgan Lloyd Malcolm's new play is a raw and physical exploration of how motherhood can be tough, and how some mothers can be failed by the system set up to protect their children.
Th…
As five conspiratorial servants potter around the stage before the show proper, we know this is going to be no typical Jane Austen adaptation. This is Pride and Prejudice as you never knew i…
Michele Lee's Rice is a deeply ambitious play, populated by numerous characters and performed by two actors.
Zainab Hassan and Sarah Lam first appear as an Indian-born executive, Nish…
One of the three Papatango New Writing prize-winning audio plays now available to listen to at a theatre near you, Nkenna Akunna's Some of Us Exist in the Future is an ambitious piece which …
Isley Lynn's complex and clever play, albatross, is revived by the represent theatre company as the first of two productions in their inaugural season.
The stage at the Playground The…
The setting is one building in Brixton. The subject is tradition, family, community and change. A cast of four men and two women bring the play to life.
Martin McDonagh's black comedy piece, co-produced by Chichester Festival Theatre and the Lyric Hammersmith, proves to be a deeper exploration of family conflict and secrets than his The Lieu…
Director Adam Lenson has something to say about musicals. In this essential text for theatre lovers, he challenges your perceptions of what a musical can, is, and might be.
Theatres were in trouble over the whole of 2020, and many are still waiting for audiences to return to their pre-pandemic levels.
On 11 September 2021, it will mark the 20th anniversary of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York. To commemorate the anniversary, Apple TV+ has filmed a performance of …
Any new musical must bring cause for celebration, and so I approached this one with some interest. First planned as a stage production and billed as "the world's first theremin musical", Fal…
Twin sisterhood, space, and the uncertain near future are at play in Amy Berryman's debut play, Walden, which recently enjoyed a run on stage as part of the Re:Emerge season at the Harold Pi…
Currently running in stage in the Little at Southwark Playhouse, Lazarus Theatre's version of Oscar Wilde's Salomé proves to be a daring, electric, and exhausting feat of theatre.
