View from the Cheap Seat

When I stood on my balcony on New Years Eve thinking about the year to come, of all the things I thought, predicted, hoped against hope 2021 might bring, theatre re-opening was certainly one. Singing along to Britney Spears’ TOXIC in a packed West End theatre was probably not. We can safely say by now…

Jermyn Street’s new season is taking a blended approach with an option to be in the audience at their central London theatre or via the comfort of your own home. For practicalities I chose the streaming version but how I wish I had been in the room. Somebody Jones’ How I Learned to Swim is…

Sequins. Lights. Rainbows. Happiness. Dancers. Wigs. Screaming (so much screaming.) More sequins. Lights that are rainbows. Tears. Hiding your tears behind your shiny teeth and shinier lipstick. Torch songs and hoe-downs. Grandmas. Glitter (so much glitter). And gentle kissing. Is the West End BACK, as the billboards and reviews shout? Despite Lloyd Webber’s amusing threats…

Billed as one of the hottest shows in town (and, yes, I know there aren’t many open currently) I have to say that “Here Come The Boys” lives up to the hype. There was such a buzz going around last night, and that was even before we got inside The London Palladium. Out in Argyll…

One of the interesting thing about interviews now largely being conducted by Zoom is that little insight you get into the person you’re talking to and the space they live in. Sometimes it’s a plain wall or a strategic piece of artwork, sometimes a bookshelf with all the very clever titles on display. As is…

A monologue on a West End stage without a household name feels like a huge risk. In any other time it would be but theatres have very little to lose after a very difficult year. Jack Holden’s Cruise is a timely look at LGBT history, for a fans of Russell T Davies’ It’s a Sin…

AAAAA is hard to review as any even minor plot points will reveal spoilers. And who am I to reduce the enjoyment of others as desperate to return to theatre as I am? Suffice to say, the play explores the porous area between life and death – he liminal space in which a fragmented consciousness…

It shouldn’t be surprising that a play written in 1935 still resonates, the thirties were a time of post-war trauma and financial depression. The UK in the last decade has seen the affects of austerity, the move towards a gig economy and part time working that is not financially viable for many people as they…