Spirited and playful, with a series of dazzling and often surprising acts, Cirque du Soleil’s Corteo looks back on the life of a clown named Mauro. He imagines it is his funeral and he is being attended by angels. As other characters drift in and out, it is not a wake, but a celebration –…
Light-hearted and fun, Footloose: The Musical is centred around change in conservative America in the 1980s. Navigating it, especially when it is forced upon you, can be mighty difficult, especially when it leaves you feeling like a fish out of water. That is the situation for the central figure in the story, Ren McCormack. About…
Oh my. What would lauded Russian playwright Anton Chekhov think if he came back to life and saw Pony Cam’s hilarious reimagining of The Cherry Orchard. Written in 1903, the original concerns an aristocratic landowner returning to her family estate and sanctioning its sale to pay the mortgage. As the orchard literally faces the chop,…
The singing and dancing in this Lin-Manuel Miranda (Hamilton) musical spectacular is off the charts. Featuring a blend of hip-hop and Latin rhythms – salsa, merengue and samba – it is an energetic and colourful cultural celebration, marked by superb performances. It is clear why In the Heights, which opened on Broadway in 2008, claimed…
A man mistreats a woman in a relationship – emotionally or physically, or both. The warning signs are there, so why doesn’t the woman leave? Why doesn’t she get out at the first sign of a red flag? If only, it was that simple. Truth be told, expressing regret, saying they will be better, that…
MTC keeps lifting the bar. Kimberly Akimbo is a superb, zany, comical and tender production. The five-time Tony Award winner, which included Best Musical, concerns a lonely girl about to turn 16 who has a very rare genetic condition. She ages four to five times faster than normal, which means she looks old long before…
Powered by super group Queen’s magnificent repertoire, PLOS’ We Will Rock You is a hyper energetic production. Any good rock concert is big on sound, lighting and staging and this jukebox musical nails that. We are in a dystopian future. The premise is trying to save rock ‘n roll 300 years from now. Truth be…
Having sold more than 100 million records and amassed in excess of two billion streams, singer songwriter Cat Stevens’ laid back style of folk pop made him a leading hit maker in the 1960s and ‘70s. And now, it all comes flooding back in a superbly rendered, melodious concert by a group known as Music…
Having seen The Forgotten Songbook, I am left wondering why Wilbur Weissman isn’t talked about in the same breath as the great composers of Broadway’s Golden Age. I speak of the likes of Rodgers and Hammerstein, Irving Berlin, Cole Porter and Leonard Bernstein, to name but a few. I was captivated by the music I…
It is bold, esoteric and highly creative. Set in isolated territory, it is Wild West storytelling at its finest. It is tale within a tale of a feeling that overtakes one that can’t be readily explained, but needs to be acted upon. Let me try to give you some context. A trucker in the middle…
