★★★★★ One Love packs an awful lot into its running time, not only performing a greatest hits of the man’s music, but of his life: the break-up of the Wailers, his Rastafarian journey, his adventures in England, his relationship with his wife Rita (Alexia Khadime), and the politics of his home country, Jamaica . . . People danced, clapped, swayed, and sang along for the entire encore performance. What joy there was in that theatre!
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★★★★★ The National are at it again; knocking out a huge crowd pleaser with international appeal and bringing it home skipping as light on its feet as ever for a return national tour. I first reviewed the production a couple of years ago when it was stretching its legs at the Bristol Hippodrome. My original assessment after last night’s viewing has not changed
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★★★☆☆ 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.
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★★★★☆ It is easy to see why this won the Arts Award Voice Award for Pick of the Edinburgh Fringe. Go and see it, not for any deep psychological insights into murderers or the women who love them, but because it’s a piece of original, entertaining and yes, genuinely funny, theatre.
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★★★★☆ Abigail’s Party is Mike Leigh’s masterpiece. It is basically a tirade against marriage (he was married to Alison Steadman at the time) and suburbia and is a masterclass in airing one’s dirty linen in public with Beverly and Lawrence constantly at each other’s throats, Tony and Angela hardly speaking to each other and Susan recovering from a divorce. Beautifully observed and written as though with a cut-throat razor it was often painful to watch.
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★★★☆☆ We may still suffer from some of the same prejudices explored in the play but at least most human rights are enshrined in law; these days a woman doesn’t need to seek permission from her husband or father to obtain a loan, for instance. Ibsen’s examination of a woman’s role in the family, marriage and household can still resonate and the play continues to be popular.
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