Independent theatre reviews

In a recently developed theme for me, Fresh Shoots is an event I had decided to go along to but was then invited to review, so off I went with a notepad (because, there were snippets of 8 different shows!), and a personal mission to try and get a photo of every cast member. Sadly, I failed on the photos, so apologies to the casts of the shows for which my reflexes and camera combination didn’t succeed. This was my first scratch night and I walked towards the Drayton Arms f

Photo by Lucy Hayes I was invited to review The Magic of Christmas at Brick Lane Music Hall, and I was keen to see it, partly because of its festive nature but also because I had never been to this venue before and I was interested to see what it was like. Brick Lane Music Hall today is located – not on Brick Lane, as it was in its original form – but in Silvertown, in what is also known as St Mark’s Church. This building is such a good choice; when you walk through the door

I was invited to review Leading Voices LDN’s Fresh Off The Score Winter Edition at the Union Theatre, and told it was going to be a concert of seasonal songs from new and emerging British and UK-based theatre writers, many of which had been written especially for the evening. It was a pleasure to attend this sold-out event. The members of the choir burst onto the stage in a flash of red and black, and their opening song – Where the Wind Blows (from Bear Left by Ollie Mills) i

During the second day of Musical Con 2025 I achieved some of what I set out to do but not all of it. This was because I spent most of my time at the Main Stage watching what was going on and taking quite a lot of photos of the performances. The day started with a talk about The Lion King with some of the performers and crew talking with Henry Calvert and sharing some inside information about the West End production. Did you know that they use 232 puppets in each show? Hard

Leyton Williams at Musical Con 2025 I feel hugely honoured to have been gifted a ticket for Musical Con 2025 – massive thanks to Chloe Nelkin Consulting for this – should I admit I was so excited when I heard, I had a sleepless night? Probably not, but there you go. This was my first visit to this event, so I really didn’t know what to expect but having loved musicals for as long as I can remember, I knew it would be my sort of thing. The queue opened at 8am – I didn’t make

I was invited to a showcase of Flyology, a new musical by Tamiko Dooley and Cathy Farmer which was happening as part of the Musical Bites season at The Other Palace. I hadn’t heard of Musical Bites before, but walking into the foyer bar area of this theatre to an atmosphere that was fizzing with anticipation was quite an experience in itself. Tamiko Dooley If you are a fan of The Piano (Channel 4) you may have already heard of Tamiko from watching Series 3. It doesn’t real