Tag: Niall Griffin

Pretty boys, golden dreams

The production is delightful. It offers the now-57-year-old musical levity. As it opens, the lighting is rich with nuance. It feels like you’re gazing at a tableau of Rembrandt’s 1635 Belshazzar’s Feast not only for its colouration, but also in the evoked debauchery, teetering on the edge of biblical taboo.

What are we teaching our teens?

As loud, hard-edged stage musicals go, where the characters are dwarfed by massive technological sets, the lyrics are profoundly superficial and the lights set to penetrate your eyelids, Dear Evan Hansen presents technical competence. There are some beautiful moments of harmony between singers. Stuart Brown opposite Michael Stray collaborate compellingly.

Kicks and pricks in the classroom

MUSICAL TALES THAT wag a finger or six at values which keep young blood closeted in ignorance have a danger of warming the cockles of the heart even before the curtain rises. Sylvaine Strike’s adaptation of Frank Wedekind’s establishment-rattling work Spring Awakening which was only first performed some […]

You, me; your wife, my husband

WHAT, REALLY CONSTITUTES a life-long friendship? Is it the sharing of trauma? Is it found in people who you were schooled with as infants? Is it about the people you found yourself shoved up against in the army? For George (Alan Committie) and Doris (Sharon Spiegel-Wagner), it’s about […]

Hedwig takes it all the way

YOU KNOW THAT headache you get when you are grinding your teeth really energetically to ensure that the outer chaos doesn’t make your whole head implode? That is the kind of feeling you may emerge with when you exit Hedwig and the angry inch. It’s a mash up […]

Let’s hear it for the boys

IF THE RAZZLE-DAZZLE of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Joseph extravaganza is what gets your mojo pumping, look no further. This show is replete with utterly fabulous male performers, a song repertoire that’s mesmerising and upbeat and a hodge-podge of music references that may turn your head, if the booming […]