Old Vic

In the wake of mega hits ‘Hamilton’ and ‘Emilia’, it feels like a hip hop suffragette musical is what theatre fans are crying out for. But despite a dynamite cast, ZooNation director Kate Prince’s ‘Sylvia’ probably won’t get audiences rioting in the streets. Retooled after an Old Vic run in 2018 that was hastily restyled as a work-in-progress, it’s now polished but painfully polite, steering clear of political rabble-rousing in favour of a historically faithful trundle through early twentieth-century politics. Sylvia starts out as her mother Emmeline Pankhurst’s protegée. In a song that hits many of the same bases as ‘My Shot’ from ‘Hamilton’ (the first of lots of hard-to-ignore parallels), she outlines her mission: to get the vote for women, with her family’s full support. Sharon Rose’s likeable performance here is full of bright-eyed sincerity, but what’s missing is a sense of the obstreperousness that Sylvia must have had: it’s jarring when she’s tried in court for ‘abusive language and causing a public disturbance’ when all she’s done is rather sweetly call a few men ‘cocks’, with accompanying playground flapping-chicken arms. Matters aren’t helped by the tasteful monochrome full-skirted costumes, either, which make Sylvia’s gang look like they’re about to hand you a plate of buns in some kind of old-timey tearoom. As Mama Emmeline, Beverley Knight adds a bit of welcome fire, but she feels underused. She incites the gang to march for women’s rights in a gospel-style numbe

‘Groundhog Day’, Tim Minchin’s adaptation of the 1993 Bill Murray classic, returns to the Old Vic in 2023, seven years after its original run, with Andy Karl reprising his turn as Phil Conners. The below review is from its original 2016 run. INTERVIEW: Tim Minchin on 'Groundhog Day', Brexit and getting over Bill Murray ‘Groundhog Day’, Tim Minchin’s adaptation of the 1993 Bill Murray classic, is a musical about repetition. And also redemption. ‘Groundhog Day’, Tim Minchin’s adaptation of the 1993 Bill Murray classic, sees the songwriting comedian reunite with director Matthew Warchus. It’s the dream team who made ‘Matilda’, the best British musical of the twenty-first century (apart from maybe ‘London Road’). ‘Groundhog Day’, Tim Minchin’s adaptation of the 1993 Bill Murray classic, is not quite as good as ‘Matilda’, it’s a bit more slick and saccharine. But it is bloody good, probably the third-best British musical of the twenty-first century. ‘Groundhog Day’, Tim Minchin’s adaptation of the 1993 Bill Murray classic, does not star Bill Murray as Phil Connors, the cantankerous weatherman who finds himself doomed to repeat the same day – watching a twee New England weather ceremony involving a rodent called a groundhog – over and over again. Instead it stars US actor Andy Karl. He is really very good, his matinee-ish looks making sense of Phil’s womanising arrogance. It does not star Andie MacDowell as Phil’s TV producer love interest Rita, but rather Carlyss Peer, who brings