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Franco Milazzo - Page 2

Franco Milazzo

The Daily Beast were kind enough to call me "a man with an encyclopedic knowledge of the city’s underground culture" and I have been editing/reviewing stage productions since 2010 for some of London's biggest websites covering theatre, opera, dance, cabaret, immersive and everything in between.






Review: KIRILL RICHTER - THE SANDS OF TIME, London Coliseum
Review: KIRILL RICHTER - THE SANDS OF TIME, London Coliseum
September 12, 2024

Have you ever invited a guest to your own party and then seen them totally upstage you? If so, spare some sympathy for Kirill Richter who presented his new work The Sands Of Time alongside the National Symphony Orchestra of Uzbekistan for one night only at the London Coliseum.

Review: THE ROCKY HORROR SHOW, Dominion Theatre
Review: THE ROCKY HORROR SHOW, Dominion Theatre
September 11, 2024

Featuring a press night appearance from creator Richard O’Brien and Jason Donovan as the suspender-donning scientist Frank N. Furter, The Rocky Horror Show returns to the West End. The raucous homage to the films and music of the 1950s as seen through a pansexual lens lays a claim to being the UK’s most popular musical.

Review: THE MAGNETIC FIELDS: 69 LOVE SONGS, Barbican Hall
Review: THE MAGNETIC FIELDS: 69 LOVE SONGS, Barbican Hall
September 3, 2024

Wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with the name of American metal band Goatwhore, Stephin Merritt and his Magnetic Fields bandmates arrived in London last weekend to celebrate the 25th anniversary of genre-blending 69 Love Songs.

Review: WING CHUN, Sadler's Wells
Review: WING CHUN, Sadler's Wells
September 2, 2024

Presented as a side-by-side narrative by the Shenzen Opera and Dance company, Wing Chun tells the story of kung fu grandmaster and Bruce Lee mentor Yip Man as well as that of a film crew making a movie about his life.

Review: A NIGHT WITH JANIS JOPLIN THE MUSICAL, Peacock Theatre
Review: A NIGHT WITH JANIS JOPLIN THE MUSICAL, Peacock Theatre
August 29, 2024

Who wouldn’t want to spend a night with Janis Joplin? Despite barely hitting the charts on this side of the pond, the American singer still symbolises the best (and worst) of the Sixties over fifty years before she joined the 27 Club. Not that you would know from this show.

Review: BOUND, Bargehouse
Review: BOUND, Bargehouse
August 27, 2024

As shown in Amber Jarman-Crainey’s Bound (stylised as B O U N D), talking to the dead is not solely the preserve of spiritualists and mediums. Her immersive meditation on grief manifests in the form of nine storylines where the living pour their hearts to those who have passed.

Review: MR PUNCH AT THE OPERA, Arcola Theatre
Review: MR PUNCH AT THE OPERA, Arcola Theatre
August 22, 2024

It’s not every show that hands out party poppers as you go in. Aimed at young audiences, Mr Punch At The Opera whips together the iconic hand-puppets with a musical amuse-bouche.

Review: THE 39 STEPS, Trafalgar Theatre
Review: THE 39 STEPS, Trafalgar Theatre
August 20, 2024

Patrick Barlow’s parody The 39 Steps creaks and groans in places but still has plenty of laughs. Wrapped around the central character of Richard Hannay, the story unfurls as we see him accused of murder, run from the police and then defeat a foreign cabal of spies. 

Review: YEOMEN OF THE GUARD, Opera Holland Park
Review: YEOMEN OF THE GUARD, Opera Holland Park
August 8, 2024

Opera Holland Park close out another acclaimed season with a rollicking Yeomen Of The Guard.

Review: MADAMA BUTTERFLY, Royal Opera House
Review: MADAMA BUTTERFLY, Royal Opera House
July 15, 2024

There’s a singular simplicity in Madama Butterfly that draws in audiences year after year, decade by decade like moths to a flame: a man loves and leaves a woman; she gives up everything for him. With a staging that mirrors that bare but powerful concept, Moshe Leiser and Patrice Caurier’s 2002 production returns again to Covent Garden with more than a patina of authenticity.

Review: FUERZA BRUTA: AVEN, The Roundhouse
Review: FUERZA BRUTA: AVEN, The Roundhouse
July 12, 2024

Feeling like the wildest circus party in town, Fuerza Bruta (Spanish for “brute force”) return to the Roundhouse with their new show Aven.

Review: DR ADAM PERCHARD AND RICHARD THOMAS: INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMP, Soho Theatre
Review: DR ADAM PERCHARD AND RICHARD THOMAS: INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMP, Soho Theatre
July 11, 2024

It would be difficult to describe Adam Perchard as some shy, self-effacing wallflower. They follow up Bunburying (The Importance of Being Dr Adam Perchard) with another autobiographical show, this time with composer Richard Thomas, co-creator of Jerry Springer: The Opera.

Review: LONDON CLOWN FESTIVAL: OPENING CABARET, Soho Theatre
Review: LONDON CLOWN FESTIVAL: OPENING CABARET, Soho Theatre
July 9, 2024

And here we go again: the London Clown Festival returns for another run of bizarre, brilliant and occasionally bonkers shows until 26 July.

Review: COSÌ FAN TUTTE, Royal Opera House
Review: COSÌ FAN TUTTE, Royal Opera House
July 8, 2024

Has opera found its own Ivo van Hove? Jan Philipp Gloger’s radical production of Così fan tutte continues until 10 July.

Review: TOSCA,  Royal Opera House
Review: TOSCA, Royal Opera House
July 2, 2024

Fronted by some fresh faces, Jonathan Kent’s cinematic take on the Puccini masterwork Tosca returns for its seventeenth run at Covent Garden. 

Review: MANIKINS: A WORK IN PROGRESS, CRYPT
Review: MANIKINS: A WORK IN PROGRESS, CRYPT
July 2, 2024

Deadweight Theatre’s The Manikins: A Work In Progress is many things. It is interactive. It is intimate. It is thought-provoking. And, despite the misleading title, it has a polished concept that leaves its audience pondering long after the show ends.

Review: LEA SALONGA: STAGE, SCREEN & EVERYTHING IN BETWEEN, Theatre Royal Drury Lane
Review: LEA SALONGA: STAGE, SCREEN & EVERYTHING IN BETWEEN, Theatre Royal Drury Lane
June 25, 2024

With a cry of “honey I’m home!”, international musical theatre icon Lea Salonga returns to the stage that launched her career over three decades ago.

Review: ACROBATIC SWAN LAKE, Sadler's Wells
Review: ACROBATIC SWAN LAKE, Sadler's Wells
June 24, 2024

Zhang Quan’s Acrobatic Swan Lake is so much more than its title suggests. The show originated in China in 2004 and, in the intervening decades, has travelled the world and was updated in 2019 under director Yan Hongxia. As choreographer and artistic director, Quan has created a work which seamlessly blends the elegance and poetry of ballet with the ability of circus to defy physics and the limits of the human body.

Review: CIRQUE: THE GREATEST SHOW, Leicester Curve
Review: CIRQUE: THE GREATEST SHOW, Leicester Curve
June 11, 2024

With its live singers, superb clowning and disappointing vaudeville acts, The Entertainers’ Cirque: The Greatest Show is bringing its dazzling show around the country.

Review: THE BARBER OF SEVILLE, Opera Holland Park
Review: THE BARBER OF SEVILLE, Opera Holland Park
June 5, 2024

Even if the press night weather for this open air production suggested otherwise, this latest take on The Barber Of Seville is the perfect summer opera with its fluffy blend of humour and romance and some of the art form’s best known arias.






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