End of 2019 report

Well, it’s been quite a year, hasn’t it? The less said about the political landscape the better, except for the fact that it’s probably given James Graham enough material to last a lifetime… I can’t help but wish that I had some play writing ability to lighten the load (and for my own catharsis)! Back […]

Favourite shows 2019

Whilst I didn’t see as many shows as last year, I don’t think I had quite such a good run of shows in 2018 as I have this year – so making this list was no mean feat. As usual, there were some which were ineligible for the list as I’d seen them last year; […]

Tuesday Newsday: 22 October 2019

Headlines Voting has opened for the 2019 BroadwayWorld UK Awards! Vote for anything from Most Accessible Theatre and Theatrical Event of the Year to Best Musical Direction of a New Production of a Play or Musical and Best Regional or Touring Production. Come From Away last week celebrated its 300th performance (& 300,000th visitor) by […]

2019 mid-year update

Once again things started off steadily and sensibly, but then too much interesting sounding stuff (both in & out of London) came up and ended up taking over my diary… I may have again gone down in terms of the amount of shows I’ve seen in six months (103 different shows, 126 individual visits to theatres), but I […]

#MindTheMusicals 2019: round-up

What a week that was! For some people, musicals are simply jazz hands and tap shoes – whilst I do love both of those things (mostly the latter, let’s be honest), we’ve come a long way since the early days of this particular medium. All genres of music are embraced in the making of a […]

Day 7: Love them, or loathe them?

I love musicals. I do. I wouldn’t put myself through an entire week of them if I didn’t! Though, for me, variety is absolutely the key to enjoying theatre – I genuinely cannot get inside the minds of people who will only watch musicals and not even think about embracing a play. Even with the […]

Day 6: Cheap trick

Costs of theatre tickets are going up – London isn’t quite at New York levels of crazy just yet, but there are so many seats that the average person simply can’t afford now. When a big percentage of the house is going for over £100 (even as much as £250 for some ‘premium’ options) then […]

Day 3: “Relentlessly cheerful”

Sometimes when you see a show you can be blinded by an extreme of feeling about it; you may love or hate it, and end up unable to predict what your fellow critics’ verdict will be. Other times you can be more sure – certain aspects of a show can be judged more objectively (terrible […]

Day 1: Olivier Awards reactions (musicals)

I think it’s safe to assume that nearly all of you reading this right now had one thing on your minds last night: the Olivier Awards. Whether you were at home listening to the radio/refreshing Twitter, at a viewing party, or inside the Royal Albert Hall itself in one capacity or another, there was certainly […]

Challenge Week 2019: Mind The Musicals

I really started something with all those Sunny Challenge Weeks… Since Sunny Afternoon closed I’ve also managed to do a Globe Challenge Week and a slightly more generic one last year – so for 2019, the Mind the Blog challenge weeks are back, and (hopefully) better than ever! My current plan is to devise three […]