Simon Ward reviews Handel’s Messiah: The Live Experience at Theatre Royal Drury Lane For one night only, as a festive treat, the Theatre Royal Drury Lane gives the cast of Frozen a night off and is taken over by what is billed as a ground-breaking version of Handel’s […]
Simon Ward reviews Wickies: The Vanishing Men of Eilean Mor at The Park Theatre One chilling aspect of Paul Morrissey’s suspenseful new thriller is that it is based on a true story. On 26th December 1900, a relief ship designated to bring supplies and take one of the […]
Simon Ward reviews The Wedding Speech at The Hope Theatre The Wedding Speech is a one-woman play written by Cheryl May Coward-Walker and performed with passionate intensity by Princess Donnough as Rosemary. She is the grown-up daughter who has volunteered to make a speech at her mother’s wedding, […]
Simon Ward reviews IKARIA at the Old Red Lion Theatre This is a compelling, if harrowing, portrait of a young man in torment. But he has become an expert in hiding his torment from everyone around him, refusing the help he is offered and pushing away his one […]
Simon Ward reviews Fame Whore at the King’s Head Theatre The Urban Dictionary defines a fame whore as ‘[a]n individual who is willing to do anything, regardless of how humiliating or demeaning, to achieve notoriety. More often than not, this involves appearing on multiple reality television shows.’ Writer Tom Ratcliffe and […]
Simon Ward reviews Persephone at The Courtyard Theatre The premise of this new musical retelling of the Persephone story (written by Emma Hawkins with music by Carrie Penn) is to take the various versions of the myth and reimagine it for our time. As such, the costumes and […]
Simon Ward reviews The Hamlet Voyage at The Bridewell Theatre The inspiration for this play is utterly intriguing. In 1607, sailors on the first English voyage to reach India stopped off in Sierra Leone for supplies and to recover from scurvy. It was recorded in the ship’s log that during this stop the sailors performed Hamlet for the local West […]
Simon Ward reviews Let’s Pause There at The King’s Head Theatre This debut play by comedy writers Russell Obeney and Andre Guindisson crams a lot, perhaps a little too much, into its running time of about an hour. In keeping with its therapy-based theme, we are required to […]
Simon Ward reviews Tomorrow May Be My Last at The Old Red Lion Theatre I first reviewed a version of this show – described as a ‘music-driven play’ – when it was playing at The Union theatre at the end of August last year, as we were taking […]
Simon Ward reviews Jo and Sam Find Themselves In Woking at The Hen and Chickens Theatre A bare stage, save for a couple of chairs and a projector screen. Suddenly the screen lights up, Edmund Jolliffe’s music kicks in and we are taken through a rather good whistle […]
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