Tom Wicker

This review is from 'Peter Pan Goes Wrong's 2015 run. It returns for 2023. Ages eight-plus Peter Pan soars! Or doesn’t, in this extremely funny follow-up to ‘The Play That Goes Wrong’, which transferred from a fringe venue to the West End, won an Olivier for Best New Comedy earlier this year and gladdened the hearts of theatre-makers everywhere. The original cast are back for this production. If you saw ‘The Play That Goes Wrong’, there are few surprises here. It’s an ingeniously simple premise: drop an audience into a fourth-wall-breaking performance of a show that falls apart spectacularly from the first scene. Here, that’s an adaptation of JM Barrie’s ‘Peter Pan’, directed and starring the pompous Chris (Henry Shields), who – in spite of his amusingly seasonal, pissed-off insistence that this is ‘not’ a panto – is properly boo-hissable. And not just as Captain Hook. The real director of ‘Peter Pan Goes Wrong’, Adam Meggido (who’s just had huge West End success as co-creator of ‘Showstopper! The Improvised Musical’), stages everything beautifully, creating a breathlessly chaotic atmosphere that distracts us from the obvious technical skill and sophistication necessary in order to make everything break down so hilariously. There’s some inevitable flying-related japery, with the ‘actors’ swinging haplessly into scenery or abruptly disappearing. But while this – and the various set malfunctions – are good for quick laughs, it’s the cast’s comic timing that really powers it, fr

This review is from 2022. ‘Elf’ returns for Christmas 2023.  ‘Elf the Musical’ rolls back into the West End with the same blunt-force charm as Buddy, its star. The last time this production was at the Dominion Theatre, in 2015, it was the venue’s fastest-selling show in nearly a century. It’d be a huuuge surprise if it’s not a success this time either. Apart from a few tweaks and a couple of excised characters, the story largely follows the smash-hit 2003 Will Ferrell movie vehicle that’s now a perennial Christmas favourite. Titular hero Buddy’s Teflon-coated cheer can’t disguise the fact that he’s suspiciously tall for an elf. When Santa Claus breaks the news to him that he is, in fact, a human, Buddy sets out from the North Pole to find his real father in New York City.    The influences on the film and this show are legion, particularly ’80s fish-out-of-water classics like ‘Big’. Buddy arrives to find a fraught New York, full of Christmas as a sales pitch, but not with its spirit. His father, Walter Hobbes, is a harried, snappy publisher of kids’ books with no time for the young son he actually knows he has. (Buddy was the result of a college romance, whose mother died without ever telling Walter.) From initially stumbling onto the shop floor of department store Macy’s, to inveigling his way into Walter’s office and then his home, Buddy’s open-handed, child-like joy shows everyone he meets the true meaning of Christmas. This show lives or dies depending on its Buddy. Thank

Tim Sheader’s 16-year tenure as artistic director of Regent Park’s Open Air Theatre ends with a blaze of colour and a timely punch in the air for self-expression. His production of Harvey Fierstein and Jerry Herman’s musical ‘La Cage aux Folles’ – based on the play by Jean Poiret – lights up the night sky. Georges (Billy Carter) manages the titular San Tropez drag nightclub, whose star attraction is his partner, Albin (Carl Mullaney), who performs as the fabulous Zaza. Their lives are thrown into chaos when Georges’ son, Jean-Michel (Ben Culleton), announces he wants to marry Anne (Sophie Pourret), whose father is the bigoted head of the anti-drag Tradition, Family and Morality Party. And guess who’s imminently arriving to see if their prospective son-in-law comes from the ‘right’ family? Current right-wing scaremongering over drag acts and people’s right to claim their own identities inevitably casts a shadow of renewed relevancy over this show. In this light, Sheader really brings to the fore in Fierstein and Herman’s book and lyrics the warm and genuine sense of family that binds everyone at the club together. Mullaney’s rendition of the anthemic ‘I Am What I Am’ ends defiantly, but starts on a note of heartbroken betrayal at discovering Jean-Michel doesn’t want Albin – who's raised him since he was a child in the absence of his mother – to meet Anne’s parents because he's ‘different’. The wonderful Mullaney threads this vulnerability throughout his performance, starting w

‘The Garden of Words’ follows on from the RSC’s hugely successful ‘My Neighbour Totoro’ as a screen-to-stage adaptation of Japanese anime – indeed, many of this production’s cast were also in the latter. However, the translation between mediums isn’t as seamless here. The play is adapted by Susan Momoko Hingley and director Alexandra Rutter from Makoto Shinkai’s 2013 film. Takao Akizuki (Hiroki Berrecloth) is a lonely 15-year-old, neglected by his mum after his dad abandons their family and with a distracted older brother about to move in with his girlfriend. Takao dreams of being a shoemaker. One day, bunking off school in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden, Takao meets Yukari Yukino (Aki Nakagawa). They gradually form a connection. Unbeknownst to him, she is a teacher at his school who has been falsely accused of inappropriate behaviour with a student. She, too, is at a crossroads in her life. Where this production definitely succeeds is its atmosphere. It’s a visually striking evocation of animation. Designer Cindy Lin’s set mixes changing video projections and practical elements to gorgeous effect. Dangling strands resembling shredded paper gesture at the Man’yosha poetry underpinning the narrative. Further bolstered by composer Mark Choi’s lushly wistful score, the aural panorama of Nicola T Chang’s sound design and Rajiv Pattani’s stylised lighting, Tokyo itself becomes the show’s most fully realised character, reproduced on stage like a heightened memory. It’s a ri

The latest show at Regent Park’s Open Air Theatre takes aim at the man behind the myth of Robin Hood – to reveal they were no man at all. Writer Carl Grose dispenses with the stereotypes in favour of an inventive retelling of the tale of everyone’s favourite outlaw. In a version of events spiritually in tune with Joni Mitchell’s ‘Big Yellow Taxi’, the dastardly sheriff Baldwin (Alex Mugnaioni) is going to pave paradise and turn the villagers’ beloved forest into a road. But someone who’s pretty handy with a bow and arrow and hides their face under a green hood keeps getting in the way… Our route into solving the mystery identity of this person is Woodnut (Dumile Lindiwe Sibana), who escapes into the forest after her mother is killed and her father is sentenced to death for not paying his taxes. She persuades the people she meets there to help mount a rescue mission. Meanwhile, back at the palace, Baldwin’s wife Marian (Ellen Robertson) ducks out and – lo and behold – the ‘Hood’ appears to help the group. Packed with songs, slapstick and some great arrow-related practical effects courtesy of illusion designer John Bulleid, director Melly Still’s production has an irrepressible sense of fun. A diverse cast of actors helps to spin a tired tale on its head, as Grose chucks myth into the air and uses it to lightly poke fun at gender stereotypes, greed, entitlement and saviour complexes. If anything, the show tries to do too much. A thread about the power of storytelling gets tangl

This review is from March 2023. ‘The Way Old Friends Do’ transfers to the West End for a short run in August 2023. When an ABBA covers band booking at his local arts venue falls through, Brummie superfan Peter sees an opportunity to fulfil a lifelong dream: to step in and form his own tribute group to the Swedish pop maestros, with a difference. How will audiences react to he and his friend Edward playing Agnetha and Anni-Frid? And will their recently renewed friendship survive the experience? ‘The Way Old Friends Do’ is a play by actor Ian Hallard, who’s also on stage as Peter, a warmly approachable but initially shy ABBA fan who shares everything with his beloved nan apart from his bisexuality. He and Edward – James Bradshaw, most recently seen on our screens as dry pathologist Dr Max DeBryn in ‘Inspector Morse’ prequel ‘Endeavour’ – inadvertently reconnect via hook-up app Grindr after decades of not seeing each other. Hallard’s real-life love of ABBA shines through in his script, which packs in a Wikipedia-entry level of biographical nuggets about the group. The play’s exploration of the contours of a middle-aged friendship – not a romance – between two queer men is also a refreshing twist on its rom-com trappings. It’s similarly interesting to watch Edward, who hides his vulnerability inside an armour of posh bitchiness, tentatively navigate the idea of an open relationship after decades of monogamy with his soon-to-be husband. There’s some strong support from Donna Berli

Inventive new play ‘Hope has a Happy Meal’ at the Royal Court starts out strong. Hope (Laura Checkley) tells a long joke about a frustrated angel caught up in heavenly bureaucracy to the person sitting next to her on her flight. She seemingly delivers it well. When the punchline arrives, we laugh. But he’s unimpressed. Not only has he heard it before, he says it’s less funny because she’s changed one of the names to hers. It's an opening that works by holding its nerve, building up the humour by leaving us not knowing where it’s going. The rest of the play struggles to match its effortless freewheeling wit. Via Hope, writer Tom Fowler drops us into Satire Land – or, more precisely, the People’s Republic of Koka Kola. In this Happy Meal dystopia, everything – from cities, to train lines, to armies – is owned and branded by big corporations. With much trepidation, Hope is returning to Koka Kola, after decades away, to reunite with her sister and someone else she left behind years ago. But her visit becomes considerably more dramatic after she meets waitress Isla (Mary Malone) – who’s fleeing with her baby nephew from his father, a police officer who she says killed her sister – and a suicidal, soon-to-be-former park ranger, Alex (Nima Taleghani). They band together to find a fabled commune run by Hope’s sister. Early on in the 90-minute runtime, their journey feels like a cross between ‘The Pilgrim’s Progress’ and ‘The Wizard of Oz’ – a sort of fantastical secular allegory for

German playwright Bertolt Brecht was famously committed to making sure that his audiences never forgot they were watching theatre, employing a bunch of alienating tactics to break any – as he saw it, dangerous – illusion of the stage as a ‘mirror’ of life. Anthony Lau’s high-energy production of ‘The Good Person of Szechwan’ – at the Lyric Hammersmith after premiering at Sheffield Theatres – runs with this. It plays out its bleakness against a set that looks like a funhouse, complete with an inflatable paddling pool and two big, red slides. The play, which debuted in 1953, follows sex worker Shen Te (Ami Tredrea) as she uses the $1,000 given to her by three visiting gods – a thank you after she gives them a room – to start her own cigarette-selling business. But her attempts to combine capitalism with kindness are quickly taken advantage of by a parade of characters whose poverty or cruelty in a city described by a surtitle as an ‘open maw’ sees them fleece her. In desperation, she pretends to be her male cousin, ruthlessly exploiting everyone around her. But there’s a problem – those three gods are expecting Shen Te to be the one ‘good person’ they’ve been seeking, to convince them not to end the world.  Nina Segal’s translation of Brecht is bold, sweary and blunt, unpicking the irony of the play’s title: in a world ruled by money, there’s no room for ‘good’, other than as a naïve dream. Shen Te’s would-be husband (Aidan Cheng), who she saves from suicide, will only love her

This revival of Enda Walsh’s 2006 classic ‘The Walworth Farce’ launches Southwark Playhouse Elephant, a companion to its original space, which has been renamed Southwark Playhouse Borough. The new theatre’s layout makes it feel like a roomier venue, with a split-level bar and balcony seating. In a terrific bit of publicity, Elephant is just around the corner from the actual Walworth Road. But that’s about the only similarity the shiny new theatre has with Walsh’s play. In a grimily faded flat – a graveyard of empty beer cans with an ominous number of locks on the front door – we watch Dinny (Dan Skinner) and his sons, Sean (Emmet Byrne) and Blake (Killian Coyle) disturbingly and violently act out the farce of the title. Like a lot of Walsh’s work, this play drops you into its characters’ uncanny, insular world and you have to pick up their rules and rituals as you go along. Dinny and his sons replay a ludicrously fictionalised version of the day that they had to leave their home in Cork and come to London. Everything is blown open – including the truth – when cheerful Tesco cashier, Hayley (Rachelle Diedericks), unexpectedly turns up at the flat to return Sean’s forgotten shopping. Dinny – played with tyrannical ego and bristling menace by actor and comedian Skinner – is director and star performer of his own self-serving tale. Walsh gradually blurs the overblown, escalating nature of farce with bluntly violent examples of Dinny’s intimidation of his damaged, infantilised son

In Daniel Taub’s ‘Winner’s Curse’, the key to peace negotiations is almost everything but the obvious aim. Drawing on his experience as a member of the Israeli-Syrian and Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, Taub – also a former Israeli Ambassador to the UK – argues that it’s the ‘who’, not the ‘what’ that’s critical. It’s about who’s at the table. Together, Taub and comedy writer Dan Patterson (‘Whose Line Is It Anyway?’, ‘Mock The Week’, as well as Olivier Award-nominated farce ‘The Duck House’) have turned this into a comedy-drama about peace negotiations between fictional rival Eastern European states Moldonia and Karvistan, directed by the Park Theatre’s artistic director Jez Bond. The play is framed by Clive Anderson as Hugo Leitski, former Karvistani negotiator, reminiscing to us as part of a lecture about his role in these negotiations as a bookish but practically inexperienced young man. The younger Lietski is winningly played by Arthur Conti with rapidly deflating self-confidence, good comic timing and swamped in a suit that makes him look like the post-Tom Hanks kid at the end of the film ‘Big’. Leitski is assigned by his politically powerful uncle to accompany Karvistani’s head negotiator, Michael Maloney’s Anton Korsakov, to the negotiations, much to the latter’s annoyance. The pair end up butting heads while enjoying the dubious charms of the Black Lagoon Lodge – the site of the Moldonian peace talks – while also negotiating with their no-nonsense landlady Vaslika

Fittingly, ‘Sound of the Underground’ resists definition and genre. Neither entirely theatre, nor entirely cabaret, it is triumphantly queer. It brings a loud, proud drag culture into the Royal Court, with performers that are self-consciously far removed from the shiny reality TV of ‘RuPaul’s Drag Race’. Vauxhall has moved its bags into Sloane Square. Written by Travis Alabanza – whose smash hit debut show ‘Burgerz’ explored societal complicity in transphobia – the show brings eight performers on stage in surreal scenes that send up the self-importance of mainstream theatre, before pulling back the curtain on the harsh reality of life on stage, as well as the complex impact of mainstreaming drag performance. As co-created and directed by Debbie Hannan, this is a colourfully sprawling – sometimes verging into baggy – show. Woven into its spectacle and set-pieces is an electrically charged anger at the near impossibility of sustaining a liveable career in the arts. It also targets the blind-eyed faddishness of people who will click and clap non-binary, trans and queer drag artists, but are nowhere to be seen when their lives are questioned, threatened or attacked. This outrage is threaded through a lot of sharp, often extremely funny humour. There’s a buzz in seeing the likes of Tammy Reynolds as Midgitte Bardot sardonically eyeing up the audience before borrowing a lighter. Mwice Kavindele, as Sadie Sinner the Songbird, and Lilly SnatchDragon light up the stage with their burl

Legendary Canadian circus company Cirque Du Soleil knows how to put on a spectacle. And its thirty-fifth show – making its European premiere at their traditional London stomping ground of the Royal Albert Hall – is no different. ‘Kurios – Cabinet of Curiosities’ is a lavishly designed (by Stéphane Roy) ode to the Victorian Age of Wonder. It makes full use of the height and scale of the Royal Albert Hall’s auditorium to surreally evoke the period’s heady collision of imagination and technological advances. There’s a beautifully realised steampunk edge to the various contraptions and robots on stage. It’s a vision in bronze hues of our first steps towards flight and the flickering lights of early cinema. However, fully grasping the underlying narrative definitely needs a flick through the show’s programme. The Seeker – a scientist-like character who looks like he’s stepped out of a Pee-wee Herman film – wants to unlock the secrets of his cabinet of curiosities. After essentially giving himself an electric shock, the inhabitants of ‘Curiosistan’ appear on a locomotive and do their weird and wonderful thing. It’s a novel approach by Michel Laprise, who has progressed from Cirque Du Soleil performer to this show’s writer and director. It’s something of a shame, then, that it takes a little while for the wow-factor to really kick in. There are some inventive performances at the start, like Anne Weissbecker’s aerial acrobatics on a bicycle and comic Facundo Giminez’s ‘invisible’ cir