London

THEATRE REVIEW: RENT The Musical starring Gaten Matarazzo at Tom Stoppard’s Theatre

Posted on by mrmonstagigz

By Neil Durham

WORTH A LOOK?: ****

WHEN?: Wednesday 30 September, opens 8 October and runs through 27 March 2027 RUNTIME: 175 minutes (including a 20-minute interval)

Matarazzo from Netflix’s Stranger Things is cast perfectly as Mark the filmmaker chronicling the lives of bohemian friends in the late 80s/early 90s in New York’s East Village in this classic musical revival.

  • Read on for reasons including how brilliant the onstage seating experience is for this production
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THEATRE REVIEW Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf? starring Gillian Anderson @SohoPlace

Posted on by mrmonstagigz

By Neil Durham

WORTH A LOOK?: *****

WHEN?: Saturday 26 September, opens 30 September and runs through 19 December 2026 RUNTIME: 210 minutes (including a 20-minute interval)

Gillian Anderson gave us the definitive Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire at the Young Vic on a revolving stage a decade ago and here performs a similar trick as Martha.

  • Read on for reasons including how Anderson’s performance is 1 for the history books as she gives an unforgettable take on a classic role
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GIG REVIEW Family Stereo & Kathi Deakin at The Lexington, London

Posted on by mrmonstagigz

By Neil Durham

WORTH A LOOK?: ****

WHEN?: Thursday 17 September, tour runs through 24 September 2026

Setlist: Remedy; Waiting On Nina; Fault Lines; The Thread; I Don’t Need Light; From Here To Nowhere; Three Moon Trail; Removed; Matter; Early Promise; DLR

Family Stereo ‘folkish rockery’ frontman Blake Watt is reflecting on this, his band’s 1st sell-out London show, and tells an amusing story about ‘survivors’ guilt’.

  • Read on for reasons including how to see Family Stereo next on tour
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THEATRE REVIEW: Kimberly Akimbo starring Maria Friedman at Hampstead Theatre

Posted on by mrmonstagigz

By Neil Durham

WORTH A LOOK?: *****

WHEN? Saturday 29 August, opens Wednesday 9 September and and runs through 7 November 2026 RUNTIME: 165 minutes (including a 20-minute interval)

The key to the success of this Tony Award-winning musical is the casting of its leading lady who can convince as a 16-year-old ageing four times more quickly than her peers and as the pensioner she physically appears to be.

  • Read on for reasons including how this is is filled with joy, love and laughs even at its tear-spattered finale
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THEATRE REVIEW: The Story starring Letitia Wright & Lorraine Toussaint at National Theatre

Posted on by mrmonstagigz

By Aline Mahrud

WORTH A LOOK?: ***

WHEN? Friday 28 August, opens 3 September and runs through 24 October 2026 RUNTIME: 150 minutes (including a 20-minute interval)

The best thing about this revival of a 2003 US play inspired by a 1981 scandal in which a journalist won a Pulitzer Prize for writing about an inner city child only to later admit the story was fraudulent is the promising performance of Letitia Wright (pictured centre above) at its heart.

  • Read on for reasons including why today’s UK headlines would be a more relevant place for this venue to seek to represent the population it should be serving
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THEATRE REVIEW: A Month In The Country starring Sophie Okonedo at Donmar Warehouse

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By Neil Durham

WORTH A LOOK?: ****

WHEN? Monday 24 August, opens 2 September and runs through 3 October 2026 RUNTIME: 140 minutes (including a 20-minute interval)

Sophie Okonedo (Medea, @SohoPlace) is the beating heart of this revival of Brian Friel’s (Dancing At Lughnasa, National) take on this very Chekhovian tale of an 1840s Russian landowner’s wife’s infatuation with her son’s young tutor.

  • Read on for reasons including how Okonedo relishes the opportunity to be the emotional focus
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THEATRE REVIEW: Death Note The Musical at Barbican Centre

Posted on by mrmonstagigz

By Neil Durham

WORTH A LOOK?: ***

WHEN? Saturday 1 August, opens 11 August and runs through 12 September 2026.

It feels like musical theatre has never been more popular and yet we can’t help but also think that not everything’s ripe to see its characters burst into song.

  • Read on for reasons including how this should have stuck to its Post-Its rather than its musical notes
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THEATRE REVIEW: I’m Every Woman: The Chaka Khan Musical starring Alexandra Burke at Troubadour Wembley Park Theatre

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By Neil Durham

WORTH A LOOK?: ****1/2

WHEN? Sunday 2 August (matinee), opens 4 August and runs through 27 September 2026 RUNTIME: 160 minutes (including a 20-minute interval)

X Factor winner Burke (Chicago, Phoenix Theatre) is Chaka Khan and encores with a mash-up of her biggest hits – I Feel For You, Ain’t Nobody and I’m Every Woman – and it’s a joyous end to the story of a complicated woman born ahead of her time in the surprise hit show of the summer.

  • Read on for reasons including how we were expecting to see Burke’s understudy
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THEATRE REVIEW: Cats starring Melanie La Barrie & Gary Wilmot at Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre

Posted on by mrmonstagigz

By Neil Durham

WORTH A LOOK?: ****

WHEN? Saturday 1 August (matinee), opens 6 August and runs through 12 September 2026 RUNTIME: 135 minutes (including a 20-minute interval)

It’s the extraordinarily moving song Memory – sample lyric: ‘I remember the time I knew what happiness was, let the Memory live again’ – which elevates this Andrew Lloyd Webber musical based on T.S. Eliot’s poems in Old Possum’s Book Of Practical Cats.

  • Read on for reasons including how to see this show on tour around the UK after this run
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