Stuart King
06 Feb
Reviews 
Review: JEFFREY BERNARD IS UNWELL at The Coach and Horses, Greek Street
By Stuart King Tuesday, February 6 2024, 09:08
More than 30 years have elapsed since this reviewer last witnessed a production of JEFFREY BERNARD IS UNWELL. On that occasion, Peter O’Toole played the eponymous Soho hack with a propensity for drunkenness and scandalous behaviour. So, how has this bizarrely incongruous beast, weathered the intervening decades? Read on…
05 Feb
Reviews
Review: TILL THE STARS COME DOWN at National Theatre, Dorfman
By Stuart King Monday, February 5 2024, 12:33
In a post-industrial East Midlands town where the largest employer was once the coal mines but is now a warehouse, three sisters prepare for the wedding of one of their number to a Polish immigrant. The scene is primed to unveil a gamut of familiar tropes — class disenchantment, resentment of immigrants, decades-old family feuds and of course the appalling spectacle of drunken wedding dancing en masse. But Beth Steel's caustic family drama also has some unexpected skeletons in its closet, and the excellent cast seem hell-bent on freeing them.
Sinéad Matthews (Sylvia), Lisa McGrillis (Maggie), Philip Whitchurch (Uncle Pete), Lorraine Ashbourne (Aunty Carol) and Lucy Black (Hazel) in Till the Stars Come Down at the National Theatre. Photo (c) Manuel Harlan
22 Jan
Reviews
Review: CRUEL INTENTIONS at The Other Palace
By Stuart King Monday, January 22 2024, 21:47
A pair of cynical step-siblings (arrogant jock and bitchy beauty) exude a barely suppressed sexual tension leading to unsavoury competitiveness. The result is a bet between the two which essentially determines which of them has the greatest capacity to deceive and manipulate. When it comes to victims, the many naive and unworldly attendees of the affluent school they attend, provide rich pickings.
Cruel Intentions - Pamela Raith Photography
18 Jan
Reviews
Review: REHAB THE MUSICAL at Neon 194
By Stuart King Thursday, January 18 2024, 14:29
It’s the late 1990s and an arrogant pop bad boy is caught snorting by the paparazzi and gets lippy with the judge, earning himself 60 days at a rehab facility. It’ll be a doddle, right? But will the young upstart be learning life lessons from his mixed band of fellow recovering addicts, or the other way around?
The company, Rehab the Musical. Photo by Mark Senior
20 Dec
Reviews
Review: THE MOTIVE AND THE CUE at Noel Coward
By Stuart King Wednesday, December 20 2023, 10:31
It’s 1964 and movie star Richard Burton (Johnny Flynn) is in rehearsals for a production of Hamlet on Broadway. The stakes could not be higher for the Welshman who’d tied the knot with Elizabeth Taylor (Tuppence Middleton) a mere three weeks before opening night. At the helm, Shakespearean titan Sir John Gielgud (Mark Gatiss) whose classical delivery and poetic appreciation for the text, inform his directorial style and are entirely at odds with Burton’s ferocious modern vision.
The cast of The Motive and the Cue in the West End. © Mark Douet
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