Aliya Al-Hassan - Page 81

The London Coliseum has established a run of successes with some excellent revivals of almost-forgotten musicals in recent years. It now turns to Man of La Mancha in the hope of a new box office smash. The choice is an interesting one; few people have seen or even heard of it and it is over 50 years since it last ran in the West End. Unfortunately it is easy to see why, with a muddy, meandering and unconvincing production.

Based on his 1997 smash hit film and adapted for the stage by Oscar-winning writer Simon Beaufoy, The Full Monty is the bittersweet story of a group of unemployed Sheffield steelworkers who, inspired by a local Chippendale show, turn to stripping to raise some much-needed money.

Selling millions of copies and adapted into a 2001 film, Louis de Bernieres' epic wartime novel, Captain Corelli's Mandolin, is a literary tour de force. Now inventively, if not entirely faithfully, adapted for the stage by Rona Munro, it begins its new incarnation at the Rose Theatre.

At a time when youth and beauty are valued above all andwe can edit our own images at the touch of a button, a staging of Oscar Wilde's novel The Picture of Dorian Gray seems both prescient and timely. A dark and cautionary tale exploring art, aestheticism, ego and narcissism, it seems that Wilde still has much to tell modern society. A new version by Tilted Wig Productions brings Wilde's only novel to life in a touring production that arrives at Richmond Theatre this week.

It is over 35 years since David Mamet's scorching critique of the male ego and the dangers of capitalism debuted at the National Theatre. Glengarry Glen Ross went on the win the Pulitzer Prize and an Olivier. In 2017, it was revived for a successful West End run, directed by Sam Yates and starring a brilliant Christian Slater. Yates' visceral, powerful and profanity-laden production is now on a nationwide tour and comes to Richmond Theatre this week.

From the founding duo of ex-Royal Ballet dancers, Michael Nunn and Billy Trevitt, Balleboyz has seen many variations and additions to the group. Always innovating and never predictable, the collective of male dancers is currently touring with their fantastic new production Them/Us, which seeks to explore the themes of 'otherness' and how we see ourselves in relation to others.

John Brittain's nuanced and tender play Rotterdam has had a whirlwind of success since it debuted in 2015 at the tiny Theatre503. It moved to the Trafalgar Studios, won an Olivier award, then moved to an off-Broadway slot before returning to the West End in 2017. It is now embarking on an extensive country-wide tour, kicking off at Kingston's Rose Theatre.

In February this year, historian Hallie Rubenfold brought out a poignant book describing the backstories of the five women killed in 1888 by a murderer nicknamed Jack the Ripper. It has always seemed a poor reflection on society that the victims of such horrific crimes have been almost forgotten in the midst of the ever-increasing celebrity and mystery of Jack himself.

Family ties are complicated things. Those we are connected to through blood are often those we love the most, but who we can also treat the most poorly. Athol Fugard's visceral 1961 play, Blood Knot, is a story about brotherhood and how you view your family, set in the brutal world of apartheid.

There is something very noble about the mission of English Touring Opera to bring the art form to parts of the country that would normally never see it. They often bravely overlook the popular productions and turn to lesser-known ones such as Mozart's Idomeneo and Rossini's Elizabeth I. As part of their spring season, they look to Verdi's first adaptation of a Shakepearean play with Macbeth.

A comic operetta is a difficult thing to pull off, but the ENO has good form with the genre, having had great success with an irreverent version of Iolanthe last year. This year, they turn their attention to a new version of The Merry Widow for the first time in over a decade.

The Phantom of the Opera was how Aliya fell in love with theatre, but then she fell out of love with the show.

In 1998, French playwright Yasmina Reza was slightly bemused to win an Olivier Award for Best Comedy with her play ART. Her intention was to write a biting satire, tinged with tragedy, but British audiences have consistently failed to see the play as a tragedy, appreciating the play as a hilarious and sharp parody where, although art is the subject of the play, the heart of it is friendship.

Written in 1985 and first performed in 1987, Charlotte Keatley's sensitive drama My Mother Said I Never Should is a warm and understated show about the complex relationships between mothers and daughters. The show examines the lives of four generations of women as they live through the changes of the twentieth century and in their own lives.

Taking us back to a world of hideous stonewashed denim, huge hair and even bigger rock anthems, Rock of Agesis on a new national tour. The jukebox musical has been doing the rounds since it first appeared in Hollywood in 2005, but this particular version shows that it has not aged well. The paper-thin plot focuses on sweet Southern gal Sherrie arriving in LA's bright lights. Here she meets the sweet and clean-cut Drew at the Bourbon Club. With the threatened demolition of the club as a background, Sheree is drawn into the murky LA underworld where she ends up working in a strip club. After various misunderstandings, the show concludes with a vaguely happy ending; so far, so predictable.

As Editor and Lead Cartoonist of Private Eye, Ian Hislop and Nick Newman are certainly not immune to the issue of libel. In Trial By Laughter they expand what was a Radio 4 afternoon drama to a full length play, focusing on the trials of satirist and forgotten hero of free speech, William Hone, in 1817.

School is where most of us are introduced to William Shakespeare and the nature of this introduction will often impact on how much we love or loath The Bard in later life. In their series Shakespeare Up Close, Richmond's Orange Tree Theatre continues its quest to bring Shakespeare's plays to life particularly for GCSE students. This year Nathan Powell directs a dark and intensely physical adaptation of Macbeth by six talented actors.

Theatre audiences are certainly less easy to shock these days than they were back in 1973 when Richard O'Brien's outrageous musical The Rocky Horror Show first debuted at the Royal Court. These days gender is a much more fluid concept and cross-dressing is commonplace rather than quirky. Shows such as Everyone's Talking About Jamie and Kinky Boots have The Rocky Horror Show to thank for elevating cross dressing to the mainstream. Despite the fact that the show is no longer radical, here's still something deliciously teasing about a show that celebrates an alternative sexual reality and the joy of grown men wearing fishnets.

At 86, Chita Rivera could easily justify putting her feet up a little. She first performed in London back in 1958 in the iconic role of Anita in West Side Story and has never stopped since. She returned to the capital this weekend for two one-off concerts, chronicling her life and amazing career. The word legend is overused these days, but Rivera can truly justify the title. She has been nominated 10 times for a Tony Award, which is the joint record for number of nominations. In 1984 she starred in The Rink with Liza Minnelli and won her first (of two) Tony Award for her role as Anna and in 2018 she received the Special Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Theatre.

Inspired by the music and the political activism of the legendary Nina Simone, Black Is The Color Of My Voice is the tiny gem of a show, written by singer and writer Apphia Campbell. The production has been shown all over the world since 2013 and it now makes its West End debut as it comes to London's Trafalgar Studios in a heady stream of power, emotion and raw talent.