★★★☆☆ The Wedding Singer is a cheery, feather-light musical that offers a tuneful evening of undemanding entertainment. Featuring twenty songs, many of them skilful pastiches of 1980s pop, it is certainly not lacking in music and dance. The songs are fine, but they come so thick and fast that they leave no time for any lengthy passages of dialogue, so it is a tribute to this show’s multi-talented cast that they succeed in creating distinctive personalities from relatively little material.

★★★☆☆ Combining the music and lyrics of Ray Davies with Joe Penhall’s biographical book of the singer songwriter, Sunny Afternoon tells the story of The Kinks getting their break in the music business and their subsequent travails with managers, money men and unions, on an upward but sometimes tempestuous trajectory to rock’n’roll fame.

★★☆☆☆ Shaun Richie was perfectly cast and entirely convincing in a not terribly demanding role which played to his strengths, allowing his comic timing to supplement his dramatic interventions . . . There were moments of genuine horror in set pieces when the audience physically shuddered

★★★★☆ My instinct was to compare stage and film versions, having loved the movie directed by Alan Parker back in 1991. The staged version remains true to all the main characters, but has a tendency to fast forward the more subtle interchanges between them. With 10 more songs than feature in the film to get through, relationships tended to be sudden, rather than evolve, in order for the production to push on to the next foot stomping hit.

★★★★☆ Emma Hatton triumphs as an Evita who is both tainted and saintly. An experienced jazz singer, Hatton is also entirely at ease in other musical genres, delivering soaring ballads and pounding rock with equal aplomb. The standing ovation she was given last night was well deserved. Great stuff.