Reviews

Like Disney’s Newsies, this video of Kinky Boots is one of the best around because it captures the euphoria of a live performance. Recorded in London, the show, based on the movie, which in turn was based on a real story, has Charlie Price inheriting his father’s shoe factory and turning the business around by making shoes (or boots) for drag queens. The video springs from the London production of the show, a carbon-copy of Broadway, which opened at the Adelphi Theatre in 2016.

Shake & Stir’s acclaimed production of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol is the perfect show to welcome audiences back into QPAC’s largest theater, the Lyric. Previously seen at the Playhouse, this grand little show has now been blown up to fit onto the Lyric stage. As it turns out, it has just been opened up a bit and  sits quite comfortably on it. That means that Craig Wilkinson’s brilliant state-of-the-art video projections now play an even bigger role in the production, as does Jason Glenright’s moody and appropriate lighting.

WAAPA Second Year Music Theatre students and Music students are finishing the year in style with this outdoor production of Spring Awakening. A vibrant, high energy production that has a rock concert vibe - this is still a very restricted production, with capped audiences and shortened season - which is being performed well after when students normally would have finished for the year.

Imelda Staunton is sensational as Mama Rose! It’s simply one of the great performances of this Mother Courage of musical theatre roles, and she has a Best Actress Olivier Award to prove it. Determined, strident, but vulnerable, not only does every line-reading have character, but also every song-lyric. She’s the best Mama Rose I’ve ever seen on stage. Jule Styne and Stephen Sondheim’s masterpiece could not be in better hands.