Reviews

Legally Blonde – The Musical tells the story of Elle Woods and her passion to prove her love to Warner Huntington III. When Warner breaks up with Elle, she decides the only way to mend her broken heart is to become more serious and go to Harvard Law School in order to win back his heart. After working hard and meeting new friends, Elle realises Warner is not the man for her and instead realises her true feelings for Emmett. This is a happy ending show, where everyone, except Warner, finds happiness through love or their career. I was very

So, I have never seen the musical Sweet Charity and I had absolutely no idea what to expect this evening as I collected my tickets and programme before the show began. Sweet Charity is a bittersweet love story of Charity Hope Valentine, the unlucky in love dance hall hostess. She goes from bad guy ‘Charlie’ to superstar ‘Vittorio’, finally ending with assumed good guy ‘Oscar’. The show itself was intended to be a whimsical comedy, interspersed with vibrant songs and choreographed dance numbers. It did disappoint me somewhat, however. The opening song ‘See Yourself’ performed by Katy Watt (Charity) saw

The story of A Bunch of Amateurs centres around a fading Hollywood actor, Jefferson Steel, who arrives in England expecting to play the role of King Lear at Stratford-on-Avon, only to find out that his agent has booked him to play with an amateur company in the Suffolk village of Stratford St John. What follows is a colourful (language is quite strong throughout) and at times emotional look at how the Hollywood actor’s demands are compromised on the way to possibly finding his inner Lear and respect as a proper actor. A film version was made starring Burt Reynolds, Emma

On a hot evening in the Mississippi Delta, the Pollitt family gather to celebrate Big Daddy’s birthday; however, not everyone, including Big Daddy, knows that this will be his final birthday as terminal cancer tightens its ugly grip on him. There are numerous secrets buried in the big old property to be teased out through more than a few drinks as harsh truths are revealed. Jake Collyer is excellent in the role of Big Daddy, commanding the performance space with his powerful voice, superbly consistent accent, and the physicality of the larger-than-life patriarch contrasting with his imminent mortality as the

What a delightful production! The oddest thing about AUB’s latest production, a collaboration with Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra’s new music group, Kokoro, is that nowhere in the programme does it appear to acknowledge the source of this adaptation of CS Lewis’s children’s classic. Fortunately, having played Mr Tumnus in the same adaptation twelve years ago, I recognised it as that created by poet Adrian Mitchell, with Shaun Davey’s music, originally commissioned for and performed by the Royal Shakespeare Company in 2001-02. As is customary, the production is guided by AUB academic staff and visiting lecturers but uses the talents of students

Thoroughly Modern Millie was one of my favourite musical films growing up, a light-hearted, tongue-in-cheek comic pastiche of the Roaring 1920s and a number of “oh, that’s where that song comes from!” musical highlights. If, like me, you are familiar with and love the film, you may be surprised at how different the stage musical is, with the majority of the songs being different, arguably less memorable, and the characters somehow rewritten in such a way that a lot of the charm of the original film is lost. I have seen the stage musical several times now, but still find