Mica Blackwell

Unlike Firth’s decision to stretch out the film’s first half for the musical, confusingly ending it on the long-awaited calendar photoshoot, his play adaptation allows the audience to see the impact the calendar has on the outside world and the women’s personal lives.

Much Ado About Nothing is a quintessential Shakespeare farce: mistaken identities, intertwining romances, betrayals and deception all wrapped up with a neat little bow by the end. The same can be said for the screwball comedies that dominated 1930’s and 40’s cinema, so it’s no surprise why Tom Wentworth would want to bring the events of Renaissance-era Messina to the backstage gossip of Golden Age Hollywood.

Early in Power of Sail, we learn it’s firmly set in 2019. A mere year later, the world would face a global pandemic, the Black Lives Matter movement and online misinformation reaching its peak as right-wing have been given bigger platforms to express their hate under the guise of freedom of speech. Still

From the man behind Rosemary's Baby and The Stepford Wives, Ira Levin's Deathtrap has scared and intrigued audiences since premiering in 1978. One of Broadway’s most successful plays and even spawning a film adaptation, The Mill at Sonning's latest production directed by Tam Williams proves why it still makes audiences scream and laugh today.

Some can agree that the film took itself seriously to the point of unintentional hilarity, so director Jonathan O'Boyle and co-writers Roger Kumble, Lindsey Rosin and Jordan Ross do the next best thing in adapting it by shifting the tone into campy dark comedy.

Part of this year's star-studded Christmas at the Royal Albert Hall season, award-winning Radio 2 DJ and urban music pioneer Trevor Nelson returns with his third Soul Christmas concert. A smash hit since starting in 2019, Nelson brings in a mix of familiar faces and newcomers to this year's concert that adds a little funk to the holidays.

For this festive season, the team behind Tabard Theatre's production of Five Children and It have brought out their own take that will delight and captivate audiences of all ages.

Taking your family to a production of Charles’ Dickens A Christmas Carol is almost as expected as taking them to your local pantomime with at least three major productions running this year alone. No stranger to reinterpreting classic works, Mark Gattis’ (Sherlock, Dracula, Dr Who) 2021 production returns to haunt the Alexandra Palace this festive season.

Revolutionising musical theatre when it first premiered in 1963, Joan Littlewood’s Oh What A Lovely War found humour in expressing its anti-war sentiments to songs popular for the period, even garnering a film adaptation directed by Richard Attenborough.

Since its five-track EP was released in 2020, much hype has surrounded new musical British Treason. Spawning concert versions at Cadogan Hall and the Theatre Royal Drury Lane starring West End heavyweights including Hadley Fraser, Rosalie Craig, Carrie Hope Fletcher and Bradley Jaden, Treason’s first fully staged touring production now stops at the Alexandra Palace.

Riddled with cliched dialogue and unfunny gags, much of the play is spent watching a dysfunctional family bicker through meandering conversations with little structure or purpose.

Following an acclaimed run at Edinburgh Fringe, Box Tail Soup’s puppet-based adaptation of James’ horror is now terrifying audience-goers across the UK, stopping at London’s The Pleasance Theatre.

As The Statesman says, the late Mustapha Matura was “the most perceptive and humane of Black dramatists writing in Britain. His 1981 satire Meetings can be proof of that, first opening Off-Broadway and now making its first major 21st-century UK return to the Orange Tree Theatre. In his directorial debut, JMK Young Directors Award winner Kalungi Ssebandeke’s production proves why this classic remains hilarious as ever.

In 1972, Caryl Churchill’s first professionally staged work Owners caused quite the stir when it opened. Part farcical comedy, part biting critique of the housing crisis, her play now returns from Artistic Director Stella Powell-Jones.

Loosely based on the article The Ivory Highway, Lynn Nottage’s (MJ The Musical) eye-opening drama first made its Off-Broadway premiere in 2018. Now setting its sights in London’s Kiln Theatre, her powerful message on the impact of corruption and greed still remains as urgent as it did five years ago.

First opening in 2022, Anupama Chandrasekhar's (When the Crows Visit) debut play for The National Theatre, The Father and The Assassin . One of India’s most prominent and taboo-busting playwrights, her historical epic returns to the Olivier stage, now with Olivier winner Hiran Abeysekera (Life Of Pi) taking over as the titular assassin.

In today’s more progressive world, society still tells women the most fulfilling part of life is to have children. So often they’re told “give it a try” or “you’ll change your mind,” but Florence Howard’s debut play Agatha at Theatre503 boldly says sometimes women don’t want children, and that’s OK.

Spy For Spy is a play with a difference: The audience is in control of how its scenes play out, picking song titles with red heart balloons forty minutes before the performance starts.

Starting life in 1984 and garnering a successful reboot in 2020, Spitting Image remains a British comedy staple. Taking jabs at every public figure possible regardless if they’re a politician, celebrity, royal family member or musician, the cult classic show has made its way to the West End following a run at Birmingham Rep.

Last night, The Time Traveller’s Wife: The Musical  hosted an official launch event at Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club in London. Performances on the night included cast members David Hunter, Joanna Woodward, Tim Mahendran & Hiba Elchikhe as well as writers of the original music and lyrics Joss Stone and Dave Stewart. See photos from the event.