Some of our brightest young performers shine in this well produced greatest hits package. The West End is alive and well!

This time last year the first lockdown was in full swing and a great night out seemed a distant dream. But just like the Covid jab this show is a shot in the arm for theatre goers starved of real entertainment. West End Musical Celebration is billed as a greatest hits package and essentially this is what we get.  

Co-producer and host Shanay Holmes kicked off with a great version of You Can’t stop the beat from Hairspray, and introduced a succession of brilliantly talented performers. Ben Forster, winner of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Superstar TV show totally nailed Music of the night and Superstar. Sophie Evans delivers a spine tingling rendition of Somewhere over the rainbow and almost brings a tear to the eye. 

Trevor Dion Nicholas performed Friend like me from Aladdin, a song that could have been written for him. Alice Fearn took a standing ovation for Defying gravity and drew a similar response for Let it go in Act II. Rachel John displayed an impressive vocal range with Don’t rain on my parade, while Layton Williams tore the roof off with the touring production Everybody’s talking about Jamie. As the show cranked up to its finale Shanay displayed her diva credentials on Listen and One night only. The cast joined together at the end to perform the rousing From now on from the Greatest Showman.

Public Domain – The Vaudeville Theatre

Tweetingit: 3* The toxic reality of social media laid bare in this innovative new piece from two highly talented performers.

Our reliance on social media during the pandemic was undeniably complete. It provided a vital lifeline and maintained a semblance of human industry allowing many to work from home. However, it must be wondered if real communication has been usurped by a range of annoyingly convenient devices that do everything except keep us real.

So Public Domain is a timely study of how social media became an animal we feed but can no longer control. Following its well-received digital debut at the Southwark Playhouse, it now features in a limited four date run at the Vaudeville Theatre in the Strand.

As a verbatim musical it draws heavily on the indelible universe of the internet. There is a disturbing air of familiarity, as Francesca Forristal and Jordan Paul Clarke portray characters and moods that increasingly dominate our lives. Twitter, Facebook and Instagram are thoroughly analysed and exposed, resplendent with their obvious shortcomings. Forristal and Clarke occupy boxes on either side of the stage and engage through words and gestures; but never really talk.

Tweetingit: 4* A revealing documentary tracing the anatomy of a musical that broke all the rules and took the genre into new territory.

Among the many delights on BBC I-Player is this excellent documentary presented by Bruno Tonioli and Suzy Klein. Made in 2010, it provides a fascinating insight of a classic that almost never happened. The genesis of Westside Story began in the 1940s when choreographer Jerome Robbins had a spark of inspiration, a contemporary musical based on Romeo & Juliet. He recruited composer Leonard Bernstein and acclaimed playwright Arthur Laurents. However, the dream team failed to agree on the project’s direction and it was mothballed. With the addition of whizz-kid lyricist Stephen Sondheim a legend of musical theatre was eventually born.

We are presented with a highly intelligent study of a musical that re-defined the genre first on Broadway then the West End. Musical theatre was awash with bright, frothy productions like My Fair Lady and Oklahoma! But Westside Story was completely different. Dangerous and edgy, it had a Bernstein score tinged with Latin rhythm. A Shakespearian tragedy was duly transformed. Romeo & Juliet had decamped to New York as Tony and Maria, the Capulets and Montagues morphed into the Jets and Sharks warring over disputed territory. Sondheim added the flourish with dynamic lyrics that enlivened Laurent’s book. It was the perfect combination of song, dance and drama.