Sheridan Smith shines in Funny Girl *****
As opening lines go, “Hello Gorgeous” is as iconic as it gets, when Sheridan Smith greets her reflection as Fanny Brice in The Menier Chocolate Factory’s production of Funny Girl, writes Fiona...
View ArticleReview: The Pianist of Willesden Lane ****
Mona Golabek stars in this staggeringly moving account of her mother’s evacuation from Vienna via the Kindertransport, writes Fiona Leckerman. Mona Golabek sits at the keys of the grand piano, her...
View ArticleReview: Drawing Life at Barbican *****
Shocking, immensely emotive, touching, painfully sad and disbelief – these are all words that could aptly describe the experience of watching Drawing Life, performed at the Barbican to mark the end of...
View ArticleReview: Ruby Wax’s Sane New World ****
By Fiona Leckerman Having only experienced Ruby Wax through the small screen, she has always been somewhat cartoonish, a living caricature with her wide red lipped smile and voice so distinctive you’d...
View ArticleReview: Run, The Vault *****
A graffiti lined walkway leads to the underground maze of dark tunnels that house The Vault arts festival and it is here, underneath Waterloo Station, that Stephen Laughton’s play Run was performed...
View ArticleReview: Poppy and George at Watford Palace Theatre **
By Fiona Leckerman Playwright Diane Samuels’ latest offering commissioned by Watford Palace Theatre is Poppy and George, an unconventional love story set among the cloths of an East End costumier’s in...
View ArticleReview: NotMoses, The Arts Theatre ***
By Fiona Leckerman The promise of writer and director Gary Sinyor’s new play NotMoses, playing at The Arts Theatre, is a comedy of biblical proportions – according to the strap line – and a...
View ArticleReviewer’s double-barrelled attack on NotMoses is an insult to audiences
Fiona Leckerman By Fiona Leckerman There is something particularly NotFunny about distinguished theatre critic John Nathan’s follow-up article in this week’s Jewish Chronicle attacking Gary Sinyor’s...
View ArticleFiddler on the Roof at the Proms gets ripples of Mazel Tov!
By Fiona Leckerman The Fiddler’s first notes played to a packed BBC Proms auditorium was both mesmerising and moving in Grange Park Opera’s performance of Fiddler on the Roof as part of the 121st...
View ArticleGuess who’s coming To dinner? Dinner with Saddam
Fiona Leckerman meets James Bond author Anthony Horowitz, who’s also penned new stage comedy, Dinner With Saddam What would happen if you heard a knock at your door – and it was Saddam Hussein inviting...
View ArticleReview: Dinner With Saddam ****
Dinner With Saddam, Menier Chocolate Factory **** Dinner With Saddam has all the ingredients of a fine feast for its audience to digest, a farce with a political main course, a stellar cast and all...
View ArticleDough screenwriter Jeremy Freedman remembered through charity screening
Before Jeremy Freedman’s untimely and tragic death in April at the age of 36, he left behind an astonishing amount of work. The award-winning scriptwriter will be celebrated and remembered at a special...
View ArticleReview: Frances Ruffelle at The Crazy Coqs ****
By Fiona Leckerman Watching Frances Ruffelle perform without her singing On My Own, the song that launched her career as a musical theatre actress and singer would have been a travesty, so when she...
View ArticleA graphic guide to Freud..
A graphic novel about Sigmund Freud, the father of psychoanalysis, and his research on the diagnosis of hysteria is an accessible and interesting read, says Fiona Leckerman I’m not here to sell Freud,...
View ArticleReview: The Screenwriter’s Daughter ***
Jenny Hecht was the daughter of prolific screenwriter Ben Hecht and their tumultuous relationship is the subject of Larry Mollin’s play The Screenwriter’s Daughter, now showing at the Leicester Square...
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