Reviews

At the heart of this musical is a cracking story about a precocious teenager who was an Olympic Gold medal standard thief. Frank Abagnale Jnr was world class when it came to forging cheques, impersonating a pilot, pretending to be a paediatrician, escaping from custody and passing a bar exam (which he did by studying not cheating), all before he had left his early twenties.

This extraordinary new musical is based on the real-life experience of the inhabitants of the tiny Newfoundland town of Gander.  Home to a once-massively-busy airport used for refuelling planes crossing the Atlantic, the townsfolk of Gander's "ordinary" day in the number "Welcome to the Rock!" (where we meet the mayor, the local policeman, the head of the local school and various other town stalwarts engaged in their daily morning ritual) in the first scene is thrown into chaos with the impending arrival of plane after plane diverted there after an "acciden

Imagine all the trappings of theatrical reality gone: the desk, the sofa, the pictures on the walls – everything. Here is a production of Arthur Miller’s A View from the Bridge stripped to the very bone, with a setting that consists of a black wall, one chair, a light switch and a wooden floor. There’s no complex lighting or sound plot, and the cast have one costume apiece. Believe me, it works a treat. 

ANY resemblance to John Buchan’s 1915 novel, the Alfred Hitchcock’s 1935 spy drama - or any of the subsequent film versions - is purely coincidental. Simply put, it turns the entire thriller genre on its head.