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 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 BOOT at the Lion & Unicorn Theatre We open in an all too realistically-rendered anonymous hotel conference facility. Exactly the kind of place where school reunions and other excruciatingly awkward social events are held. The blandness of the furnishings and the harsh lighting do nothing […]
Simon Ward reviews Alarms and Excursions at Greenwich Theatre During rehearsals for this production of Michael Frayn’s collection of short plays and sketches, the playwright apparently wrote to the director to query whether the various technological devices which conspire to confound and torment his characters were now too […]
Simon Ward reviews Indecent Proposal at Southwark Playhouse Jack Engelhard’s bestselling novel was published 33 years ago. The movie version came out 28 years ago. So it is a curious decision to return to the notorious moral dilemma at the heart of this piece now, in 2021, in […]
Simon Ward reviews Snowflakes at The Old Red Lion Theatre The fashion over the last few years has been for plays to run for 90 minutes or so with no interval. There is a certain intensity gained by knowing that the full plot will unfurl without a break. […]