★★★☆☆ The Rice/Lloyd Webber illustrated bible story is nearly fifty years old. The novelty and frisson of setting holy writ to a popular music score and having some irreverent fun with the characters of the story may seem tame by today’s trenchantly secular standards . . . It’s a thoroughly enjoyable family show, which continues to showcase some impressive emerging talent.
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★★★★☆ The ship bobbed on, through a catastrophic encounter with an iceberg (a titanic accident), past alluring sirens, to a finale that exploded with an unexpected triple wedding, mutiny and murder. Jolly japes all round!
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★★★☆☆ The performance of Songbirds is as much about the storytelling as it is the delivery of the songs, which, with a few exceptions, are quite short. We hear about growing up in the Dimbleby household, operatic breakfasts for instance, and a reverence for granddad Richard, of whom we hear a recorded clip . . . Working acapella, Kate uses a multi-track voice looper to build layers of backing vocals.
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★★★★★ In the interval, I thought that To Sir, With Love was going to remain as a fine, if unmemorable show for the remainder of its running time. But the first half was secretly masterful, as it deftly set up a second half that (repeatedly, I’m unafraid to admit) left me in tears, warmed and surprised. What a production this was . . . the emotional power of the show bests that of any other show this year..
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★★★★★ Luke Wright is a swaggering fop (and I mean that as a compliment). His clothes are a modern take on the threads of a Georgian dandy and he’s tall, but it’s not this that makes his presence too big for this small stage. He’s a poet, but his show isn’t a traditional poetry reading, where an anxious wordsmith shares sheaves of earnest verse.
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★★★☆☆ In the early 60s, on the Caribbean Virgin Islands, a man called John Lilly began doing research on communication between humans and dolphins. His work attracted the attention of Margaret Lovatt, who was living on the island at the time. She soon became involved and eventually agreed to take part in an experiment in which she would live with a dolphin called Peter for some 10 weeks, and attempt to teach him English.
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