Southwark Playhouse
Preludes, Southwark Playhouse review - journeying into the mind of RachmaninoffThursday, 12 September 2019
Where does music come from? That’s the vital question posed to Sergei Rachmaninoff in Dave Malloy’s extraordinary 2015 chamber work, as the great late-Romantic Russian composer – stuck in his third year of harrowing writer’s block – tries to... Read more... |
Once on This Island, Southwark Playhouse review - folkloric Caribbean musical charmsThursday, 15 August 2019
As British summer really kicks in (umbrellas at the ready), our thoughts might turn fondly to the sunny Caribbean. Good timing, then, for the return of Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty’s 1990 musical set in the French Antilles. Based on Rosa Guy’s... Read more... |
Other People's Money, Southwark Playhouse review - onetime Off Broadway hit retains its stingSaturday, 04 May 2019
Deft and funny and nicely cast, what's not to like about Other People's Money, the era-defining Jerry Sterner play in revival at Southwark Playhouse? The play's 1989 premiere Off Broadway allowed for a contemporary skewering of the roaring,... Read more... |
Ain't Misbehavin', Southwark Playhouse review - a jazz-hot musical revueThursday, 25 April 2019
The joint is jumpin’ at Southwark Playhouse, now hosting an irresistible Fats Waller-inspired, Manhattan-set musical revue (a co-production with Colchester’s Mercury Theatre, where it opened last month). Though originating in the Seventies,... Read more... |
The Rubenstein Kiss, Southwark Playhouse review - slick spy drama doesn't quite come togetherWednesday, 20 March 2019
It's an ideal time to revive James Phillips's debut The Rubenstein Kiss. Since it won the John Whiting Award for new writing in 2005 its story, of ideological differences tearing a family apart, has only become more relevant. Joe Harmston directs a... Read more... |
Bodies, Southwark Playhouse review - shaky revival misses the markThursday, 21 February 2019
Bodies is the latest in Two's Company's series of what they deem "forgotten masterworks", this one making a less-than-triumphant return to the London stage after almost 40 years away. Written by James Saunders in 1977, it opened at the Orange Tree... Read more... |
All in a Row, Southwark Playhouse, review - soapy and shrill pity partyWednesday, 20 February 2019
Time once again to roll out that line about the road to hell being paved with good intentions. The creators of All in a Row, a new play at Southwark Playhouse about the last evening at home for an autistic non-verbal 11-year-old before his... Read more... |
Aspects of Love, Southwark Playhouse review - discourse keeps passion at bayFriday, 11 January 2019
“Love Changes Everything”, as immortalised by Michael Ball, is the most enduring feature of Andrew Lloyd Webber, Don Black and Charles Hart’s 1989 musical – a moderate West End success, and a Broadway flop. Jonathan O’Boyle’s production, seen last... Read more... |
The Sweet Science of Bruising, Southwark Playhouse review - boxing cleverSaturday, 06 October 2018
There are not that many plays about sport, but, whether you gamble on results or not, you can bet that most of them are about boxing. And often set in the past. Joy Wilkinson's superb new drama, The Sweet Science of Bruising, comes to the Southwark... Read more... |
The Rink, Southwark Playhouse - lesser-known musical lands afreshWednesday, 06 June 2018
Two dynamite lead performances and the chance to savour an underappreciated score give genuine charge to The Rink, a decades-old Broadway flop that feels reborn for Southwark Playhouse. A short-lived star vehicle for Chita Rivera (who... Read more... |
The Country Wife, Southwark Playhouse review – knowing Restoration updateThursday, 05 April 2018
Even in its successful early days Wycherley’s 1675 comedy was notorious, but it was considered too lewd to be staged at all between the mid-Eighteenth Century and 1924. Although the play has found an affectionate place in the canon in more recent... Read more... |
Angry, Southwark Playhouse review – wondrously roaring RidleylandSaturday, 17 February 2018
Monologues are very much the flavour of the start of this theatrical year. At the Royal Court, we have Carey Mulligan in Dennis Kelly’s brilliant Girls & Boys, coming hot on the tottering heels of Anoushka Warden’s My Mum’s a Twat, while at the... Read more... |
