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David Jays on theatre and dance

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Into the Woods | Lockdown Theatre Club 2

March 31, 2020 by David Jays Leave a Comment

Our twitter poll asking for people’s favourite genre saw an overwhelming vote for musicals. Cheer was needed. As it was also Stephen Sondheim’s 90th birthday, we went for Into the Woods (Sweeney Todd: too cannibalistic. A Little Night Music: too inept). As an added treat, Matthew Xia, who had directed a very different production at the Royal Exchange, Manchester, recorded a very tender … [Read more...]

Propwatch: the letters in Hamilton

January 21, 2018 by David Jays 4 Comments

For a show that might reshape the musical for the 21st century, there’s an awful lot of paper in Hamilton. The stage is a flurry of letters, ledgers, leaves and broadsides – it’s almost antiquated. Hamilton has sui generis swagger and the sound of something new, but it’s a story about what is written, what is read. It’s a show built on pen scratching furiously over paper. In 2009, Lin-Manuel … [Read more...]

12 Plays of Xmas: 6 Pal Joey by O’Hara, Rodgers & Hart

January 2, 2017 by David Jays Leave a Comment

Book trouble – it’s the curse of the musical. One of my most slaveringly anticipated shows of the past winter was David Bowie’s Lazarus, but the book by Enda Walsh was an embarrassment of portent, messily motivated and thumpingly framed. Similarly, some of the zippiest musical choreography I saw this year was in the retooled Half A Sixpence, but the rancidly snobbish book by Julian Fellowes made … [Read more...]

New old, same old

December 11, 2015 by David Jays Leave a Comment

The Beggar's Opera and Dead Dog in a Suitcase The world has grown old. There are no new stories, no new songs. We stick to what we know. Comfort-binge legends of sweet romance and poetic justice. Inarguable hard truths of self-serving cruelty. This is the genius of John Gay’s Beggar’s Opera, and of Dead Dog in a Suitcase, the inspired new version by theatre company Kneehigh. Gay, writing … [Read more...]

Candy-coloured world of stupid

March 21, 2014 by David Jays 3 Comments

Musicals should have jokes and tap dancing. There, I’ve said it. I’ve long thought it, sitting in the dark while leather-lunged belters lay about with coshes made of bombast and earnestness. Jokes and tap dancing, people. Jokes and tap dancing. Most musicals I see are for review, rather than on my own dollar. Partly that’s because that dollar doesn’t take you very far at West End prices (I will … [Read more...]

David Jays

I am a writer and critic on performance, books and film and currently write for, among others, the Sunday Times and the Guardian. I edit Dance Gazette, the magazine of the Royal Academy of Dance. I’m also a lifelong Londoner: it’s the perfect city for connecting to art forms that both look back and spring forward. [Read More]

Performance Monkey

This is what theatre and dance audiences do: we sit in the dark, watching performances. And then, if it seems worth it, we think about what we've seen, and how it made us feel. The blog should be a conversation, so please comment on the posts and add your thoughts. You know what I've always … [Read More...]

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Recent Comments

  • Veronica Horwell on Hamilton | Lockdown Theatre Club 17: “Know what you mean about the underpowered pre-17late90s shoulder: a bottle slope approach to body outline — the Hamilton coats…” Jul 8, 13:41
  • Sarah Lenton on Hamilton | Lockdown Theatre Club 17: “Blimey. A tour de force! Hugely enjoyable. Slight demur on whether a period raised fist would have produced a scrunched…” Jul 7, 21:44
  • william osborne on Hamilton | Lockdown Theatre Club 17: “An article that analyzes the serious problems with “Hamilton” by Ed Morales, a journalist and lecturer at Columbia University’s Center…” Jul 7, 20:20
  • william osborne on Hamilton | Lockdown Theatre Club 17: “Indeed, in the late 18th century people learned that properly toned-down attire was important for slave owners proclaiming democracy. And…” Jul 7, 19:28
  • David Jays on Bringing Up Baby | Lockdown Theatre Club 16: “Hello Ana, and thanks so much for this. Joining in is, I hope, easy: we all find the film on…” Jul 3, 16:02
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  • Hamilton | Lockdown Theatre Club 17
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