Photo credit: Rod Penn Tickets: Gifted Date: 31st August 2023 Seat: H16 Rating: 5 Stars Who among us hasn't wistfully wished our lives were like a musical when we're sitting in a theatre, gazing up at the stage? I know I have, and I'm pretty sure I can't be the only one, otherwise I Wish My Life Were Like A Musical wouldn't exist. It's a good thing it does. Written by Alexander S. Bermange (who also appears on stage playing the piano – the only instrument used throughout across 16 songs in a rapid 70-minute runtime) and directed and choreographed by Matthew Parker, this short show is an ode not just to musicals, but to those who love them, from excited theatregoer to 'super fan', as well as the performers themselves. I Wish My Life Were Like A Musical starts as it means to go on, with the cast of Jennifer Caldwell, Julie Yammanee, Sev Keoshgerian, and Rhidian Marc donning glitzy gold waistcoats and high-kicking across the stage. Thi...
Photo credit: Mariano Gobbi Date: 22nd February 2025 Seat: Unallocated Stars: 3 We all know reality TV is fake, right? The sob stories, the rigged votes, the contestant who just happens to forget their lyrics at the most dramatic moment – it’s all carefully curated chaos. But what if, in the middle of all that, someone snapped? What if a contestant broke through the illusion, turned to the cameras, and told the audience exactly how much of a scam it all is? That’s Miss I-Doll . Written by Tobia Rossi and Oliver Lidert and directed by Ruthie Stephens, this new musical at The Other Palace takes the glossy, auto-tuned world of X Factor and splices it with Squid Game levels of absurdity. Contestants are pitted against each other in increasingly bizarre challenges, all under the watchful eye of “Big Sis,” a disembodied, omnipotent host voiced with eerie cheerfulness by Natalie Casey. It’s camp, it’s chaotic, and it’s utterly unhinged. Anchoring all this madne...
Date: 3rd March 2025 Stars: 2 Revenge. Bloodlust. Family trauma. And, apparently, the urgent need to assault the audience with as much noise, nonsense, and meaningless theatrics as humanly possible. Welcome to Elektra at the Duke of York’s Theatre - a production so aggressively self-indulgent that I started wondering if it was some elaborate social experiment to see how long people could endure it before walking out. Brie Larson, Oscar-winner, Marvel superhero, and now, victim of a director with too much creative control, commits fully to the role. She stomps, she wails into microphones, she twists herself into contorted poses like she’s trying to summon a demon. She sings the word ‘no’ every time it comes up. It’s raw, it’s relentless, and it’s utterly exhausting to watch. You can practically see the emotional turmoil radiating off her, but after a while, it just starts feeling like screaming for the sake of screaming. And then there’s the production itsel...
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