theatre

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

Posted on by mrmonstagigz

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

Posted on by mrmonstagigz

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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THEATRE REVIEW: Cleansed starring Pearl Chanda, Jack Riddiford, Stuart Thompson & Leo Bill at the Almeida Theatre

Posted on by mrmonstagigz

By Neil Durham

WORTH A LOOK?: ***

WHEN? Friday 24 July, opens 29 July and runs through 29 August 2026 RUNTIME: 100 minutes (no interval)

Our performance is stopped almost midway through for what was described as ‘a 1st aid front of house incident’ and we imagine it was in response to the spurting blood as a character’s tongue is cut off.

  • Read on for reasons including how this is exactly the sort of play that can remind about the power of theatre to change its audience
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THEATRE REVIEW: Jesus Christ Superstar starring Sam Ryder, Tyrone Huntley, Desmonda Cathabel & Richard Armitage at London Palladium

Posted on by mrmonstagigz

By Neil Durham

WORTH A LOOK?: ****

WHEN? Saturday 18 July, and runs through 5 September 2026. Transfers to Theatre Royal Drury Lane 16 October through 9 January 2027. Tickets Also UK tour 11 February 2027 through 23 October 2027 RUNTIME: 125 minutes (including a 20-minute interval)

The summer success of last year’s Olivier Award-winning EVITA! perhaps made this resurrection of a recent Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre production of an Andrew Lloyd Webber classic an obvious choice as follow up.

  • Read on for reasons including how Ryder gives so much vocally it may be unsustainable 8 shows a week
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THEATRE REVIEW: Hit Machine starring Noah Galvin, Josh Radnor & Khalil Madovi at Soho Theatre

Posted on by mrmonstagigz

By Aline Mahrud

WORTH A LOOK?: ***

WHEN? Thursday 16 July and runs through 15 August 2026 RUNTIME: 75 minutes (without interval)

Galvin (pictured above left) makes his London theatre debut while his husband Ben Platt is about to open across town in new musical Midnight At The Never Get at the Menier Chocolate Factory.

  • Read on for reasons including how Hit Machine is smart, funny and bursting with songs
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FIRST LOOK THEATRE: Midnight At The Never Get starring Ben Platt at the Menier Chocolate Factory

Posted on by mrmonstagigz

By Neil Durham

WORTH A LOOK?: Awards potential

WHEN? Monday 13 July, opens 20 July and runs through 12 September 2026 RUNTIME: 100 minutes (no interval)

As this musical reaches its conclusion we can hear sniffing, stifled sobbing and crying around our front row seat showing the work’s immediate emotional impact.

  • Read on for reasons including Midnight At The Never Get will make you think, make you laugh and make you cry
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