Watch Hamilton with Lockdown Theatre Club on Tuesday 30 June. Hamilton is available on Disney+. At 8pm everyone presses play and watches together. You can tweet along (#LockdownTheatreClub) or just enjoy the film knowing we’re all part of an audience together. What is Hamilton? You’re kidding, aren’t you? It’s Hamilton. Filmed by its stage director, Thomas Kail, and with the OG Broadway … [Read more...]
Singin’ in the Rain | Lockdown Theatre Club 7
Watch Singin’ in the Rain with Lockdown Theatre Club on Tuesday 28 April. Singin’ in the Rain is available to rent on the BFI Player. At 8pm everyone presses play and watches together. You can tweet along (#LockdownTheatreClub) or just enjoy the film knowing we're all part of an audience together. What is Singin’ in the Rain? One of the most joyous of MGM musicals, from 1951. Gene Kelly (who … [Read more...]
Change the dance, change the world
Bob Fosse and Jerome Robbins: two geniuses who sound as horrible to work with as they were inspiring to watch. Two artists whose choreography is tightly locked into the DNA of the silver-plated shows they helped create. Unpicking their movement from those landmark Manhattan musicals is tough – Robbins’ West Side Story gangboys who stake a leaping, finger-clicking claim on the streets; Fosse’s … [Read more...]
Propwatch: the feather boa in Follies
Solange LaFitte is mooching backstage at the dilapidated New York theatre. Everyone has arrived at the Weismann follies reunion party, revisiting the venue where they were once the dazzling epitome of showgirl glamour. They’ve all grabbed a drink, squealed at long lost buddies and curled a lip at long-grudged rivals. Stephen Sondheim’s musical Follies (directed by Dominic Cooke at London's … [Read more...]
Propwatch: the balloons in Company
When your life is a perplexity – because your friends are needy-bossy, your cute boys aren’t quite right, your choices are urgent but confused – the last thing you need is balloons. Specifically, huge silver balloons bumping along behind you and reminding you how old you are. Bobbie (Rosalie Craig), heroine of Marianne Elliott’s gloriously rethought version of Sondheim’s Company, hoists herself … [Read more...]
Propwatch: the pencils in Fun Home
The urge to rewrite the past is irresistible. To make yourself more cool, your family more content, to turn grim endings into happy ones. Fun Home (at London’s Young Vic), the engrossingly imaginative musical based on Alison Bechdel’s graphic memoir, writes, draws and redraws the author’s past. Early on, it announces its two defining plot questions: how did Alison come out? Why did her father kill … [Read more...]