By Aline Mahrud
WHERE? Scandinavium, Gothenburg WHEN? Saturday 7 February 2026 WHERE TO WATCH? SVT
There are 2 returning winners to the 66th Melodifestivalen this year and the 1st is Robin Bengtsson who won MF in 2017 finishing 5th in Kyiv, Ukraine with I Can’t Go On.
By Neil Durham
WORTH A LOOK? *****
WHEN? Thursday 4 December, opens 18 December and runs through 25 April 2026 RUNTIME 80 minutes (without interval)
There’s so much that’s troubling going on in the world right now that sometimes it’s easy to forget the importance of laughing daily.
By Neil Durham
WORTH A LOOK? ****
WHEN? Saturday 22 November (matinee), opens 2 December and runs through 21 February 2026 RUNTIME 120 minutes (including interval)
This Noel Coward comedy about 2 married women admitting to premarital sex and contemplating adultery was 1st performed in London 100 years ago with the theatre censor initially recommending it shouldn’t be staged because the morals of the female leads ‘would cause too great a scandal’.
By Neil Durham
WORTH A LOOK? ****
WHEN? Friday 14 November, opens 1 December and runs through 25 October 2026 RUNTIME: 165 minutes (with a 20-minute interval)
They say the devil has the best tunes and this new musical’s showstopper is reserved for its taxidermist villainess – Pretty Little Dead Things (listen below).
By Neil Durham
WORTH A LOOK?: ****
Tracklist: Glad; Dancing Heart; The Go Betweens; Sweet Melodies; Save It For A Rainy Day; Fade; Brand New Me; Take Me To The Pilot; Two Lovers; Why Are You Calling; He’s Gone; The Last Time
What do Haircut 100’s Nick Heyward, Yazoo’s Vince Clarke, Xenomania’s Tim Powell, Erol Alkan, Chemical Brothers and Orbital have in common?
By Carron Stacey, A Humdrum Mum
I like to explain what kind of fan I am before a review/interview. I tell Rick I’m dead nervous as I’m such a fangirl. We’ve seen the Sheds many times, here at Victorious, in local venues and at the Shiiine On Weekender many times in Butlins. “Don’t be nervous,” he tells me. “I’m a nice guy. We’ll just have a nice chat like we’re round a pub table.” And he is a nice guy.
By Carron Stacey, A Humdrum Mum
WHEN?: Saturday 23 August 2025 (press ticket)
In our attempt to fill the sad Welly gap, before we realised that Hot Wax were possibly the new best thing, we knew The Pill, who opened the Common Stage today, were a cert. We’d seen them support Welly in Southampton earlier this year, and we could see and sense the potential.
WORTH A LOOK?: ****
We last saw Pulp live at Hammersmith’s Eventim Apollo in July 2023 and wrote: ‘We absolutely yearn for new material as good as those songs like Common People which soundtracked and shaped our adulthood’.
By Neil Durham
WHEN?: Thursday 15 May 2025
WHERE?: St Jakobshalle, Basel, Switzerland
HOW DO I WATCH?: BBC1 at 8pm in the UK or eurovision.tv or SVT
We think this is by far the tougher of the 2 semi finals and also that it will be much more difficult to lose 6 of these songs ahead of Saturday’s final rather than the 5 that will go home early in Semi 1.
Bailey (film Wicked and COCK, Ambassadors) stars in this Shakespeare directed by Nicholas Hytner (Giant, Royal Court and transferring to the Harold Pinter Theatre) at the Bridge Theatre. Runs 10 February through 10 May 2025 Tickets Our review
