Returning to the New Wimbledon Theatre is always a pleasure - even the walk from the train station appears shorter with every visit. I like a tribute show as a way of learning more about artists and musicians I can only name the very famous hits of, and love the moment when a familiar tune appears I … Continue reading Walk Right Back – The Everly Brothers’ Story at the New Wimbledon Theatre
One of the major buildings surrounding Covent Garden is the London Transport Museum, beloved by locals and international tourists alike, especially as kids go for free and most entry tickets are annual passes automatically. The colloquially called TfL Museum is also a popular event space for corporate fairs but that it has its own theatre … Continue reading The Truth About Harry Beck at the London Transport Museum
Nine years ago The Silence of Snow: The life of Patrick Hamilton had its premiere at the world-famous Edinburgh Fringe Festival, performed by its author Mark Farrelly. Since then numerous stagings followed in various places, and tonight is the 100st performance (congratulations!) at Brockley's Jack Studio Theatre, one of London's finest pub theatres and worth travelling … Continue reading The Silence of Snow: the Life of Patrick Hamilton written and performed by Mark Farrelly
It is not easy to pick and agree on a show with visitors who are musically far more trained than oneself - but luckily, this summer I had two visitors from Hamburg who were crazy enough to try out London's relatively new theatre roulette, apparently a successful concept from New York where a show is … Continue reading Trying out London’s theatre roulette: Seeing Jersey Boys at the Trafalgar Theatre
The winner of the evening at Get Up Stand Up – The Bob Marley Musical is its palettes of red-yellow-green, of green-yellow-blacks, of double denim, of the mottled wooden coating of 1970s speakers and LP listening booths – if the crackling of a record player's needle starting the iconic album Uprising has a theme, these … Continue reading Bob Marley’s West End is Red, Yellow and Green: Get Up Stand Up at the Lyric Theatre
The audio recording of Love, Love, Love begins with a warning of strong language and explicit sexual scenes, then a collage of news footage of the UK’s chaotic lockdown start in March follows, especially difficult for theatres suddenly hanging in limbo: The government did not close them but advised their guests not to go. “Missed … Continue reading Mike Bartlett’s Love, Love, Love at the Hammersmith Lyric – for your ears only
Germans are strange people occasionally: How could an averagely successful American kids’ detective book series ever become a national treasure? The Three Investigator books were first published in the United States in 1964 and author Robert Arthur doubted the success so much himself he asked no one else but Alfred Hitchcock to step up as a patron and an occasional book … Continue reading Trying to explain a very German phenomena from California – Die drei ??? in Hamburg
I always respected Tina Turner more for her voice, her energetic attitude and age-refusing charisma than for the music played by the mainstream radio stations. GoldenEye was her only song I would turn up and no one ever played her early rock stuff or The Acid Queen from The Who’s 1974 musical film Tommy we … Continue reading A rock history’s journey to happiness – Tina the Musical at the Aldwych Theatre
For the musical’s 50th anniversary production company Aria Entertainment bought Hair back on stage in 2017. I attended the London premiere in October of that year in The Vaults, a tunnel labyrinth of a venue under Waterloo Station. There was bunting hanging from the low ceiling, so it felt like being in a den or … Continue reading HAIR the musical – the timeless classic in Wimbledon
I am where I wanted to go since passing the glittering façade of the Shaftesbury Theatre during our pub crawl leading to the jazz night at Ronnie Scott’s. An endless amount of Motown tribute shows and revues are now touring and rotating through the stages of the whole planet. I have been assured that Motown … Continue reading Feeling sound in the West End – Motown The Musical at Shaftesbury Theatre
Sadie takes the Stage 