WORTH A LOOK?: ****
WHERE?: London Coliseum
WHEN?: 25/9/20 RUNTIME: 50 minutes (no interval)
The great singers make what they do seem effortless, that anyone could do what they do, and so it is with Carrie Hope Fletcher.
WORTH A LOOK?: *****
WHERE?: Livestreaming via Leave A Light On courtesy the Theatre Cafe
WHEN: 10/4/20
‘This does make me sad about theatre and how we all really need it. It will come back better than ever because then people will know how much they need it. We just need to be strong for the time being,’ says West End and Broadway star Fra Fee during this intimate internet lockdown gig.
Thank you to our tens of thousands of readers who drove up our traffic by more than 12 per cent in 2019 and welcome to a top six of the most popular content of the year.
Sheridan Smith won our Best Theatre Actress monsta in 2015 and here stole the show in Lloyd Webber’s Palladium revival of one of his biggest hits. We said in our review: ‘We know we’re in safe hands when the always reliable Sheridan Smith channels Eric Morecambe from behind a fake moustache, confiding to the audience: ‘It’s still me.’ It was such a success that it returns to the Palladium for a second run next summer. Tickets
It’s almost Christmas and what would the festive season be without some recognition of the best of 2019? Over the next month we’ll shortlist five nominees in each of 14 categories for our Oscars, or monstas if you will, of 2019.
We awarded 14 monstas for the best pop, theatre, TV and film of 2018 in December – and here we look at the cream of 2019 so far and what’s to come. Getting Married Today (Company) and Tight Connection To My Heart (Girl From The North Country) are previous winners in this category.
WORTH A LOOK?: ****
WHERE? Gielgud Theatre RUNTIME: 170 minutes (including 20-minute interval)
WHEN? 17/8 and runs to 30/11/19
STOP PRESS: This production returns at the Sondheim Theatre for 6 weeks from 5/12/20 Tickets
This year’s BBC adaptation of Les Miserables was song-free and here that idea is very much reversed with the focus on the score of the behemoth musical with the labyrinthine plot far less well explained.
Author Phoebe Waller-Bridge won our 2016 Best TV/Film actress monsta for her work on the 1st TV series (5 reasons to watch here) of this show and the original play on which it is based comes to the West End’s Wyndham’s Theatre 20/8 through 14/9/19. Tickets
WHERE? BFI & Radio Times Television Festival
WHEN? 13/4/19 The Durrells airs on ITV at 8pm on Sundays, finishing 12/5/19
Josh O’Connor plays Prince Charles in the next series of Netflix’s The Crown and if he met the royal he would want to compare ear stories.
WORTH A LOOK?: ****
WHERE?: the Other Palace (Studio)
WHEN?: 29/8/18
Fra Fee repeats his award-winning West End role in Jez Butterworth’s The Ferryman on Broadway from October and here proves what an outstanding musical performer he is.
WORTH A LOOK?: ****
WHERE: Queen’s Theatre
WHEN: 6/1, runs to 10/16
Billed on its official website as the ‘world’s longest running musical’, is Les Misérables sprinting ahead, keeping pace or losing puff?
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