Marianka Swain - Page 41

Actor Alex Bourne's past musical work ranges from Kiss Me, Kate to Chicago and We Will Rock You. After playing Daddy Warbucks on tour, he's now back in the role for the West End run of Annie, which begins previews at the Piccadilly Theatre on May 23.

Following UK tours of West Side Story and Singin' in the Rain, plus several ensemble and understudying roles in shows like Wicked and Grease, Matthew Croke takes on his first West End lead when he becomes the new Aladdin on 5 June in the hit Disney production at Prince Edward Theatre.

Salome, that dancing seductress who demanded the head of John the Baptist, has been reclaimed by Yael Farber in this new feminist interpretation (the RSC stages Oscar Wilde's more familiar take next month). Or at least that's the intention, but Farber's production sacrifices the personal for the mythic - ironically once again losing the girl history erased in a storm of overblown symbolism.

The hit West End revival of Dreamgirls is rumoured to be heading over to Broadway next year. In the meantime, fans on both sides of the pond can be content with this excellent double-CD cast album. Recorded live at London's Savoy Theatre, complete with audience reaction (rapturous during 'And I Am Telling You…'), it's a strong approximation of a thrilling theatre experience.

Edward Fox's stellar stage and screen career ranges from Hamlet and The Go-Between to The Day of the Jackal. He's currently performing one-man John Betjeman play Sand in the Sandwiches, which comes to London's Theatre Royal Haymarket on 30 May.

Tony Kushner's landmark two-part play begins at a funeral, with a rabbi solemnly naming a woman's surviving relatives; partway through the interminable list of grandchildren, he stops and sighs. It's a witty opener for a piece that's epic in every conceivable sense of the word, taking almost eight hours to tackle not just state of the nation, but state of humanity and the divine. Though there's the odd lull, particularly in Kushner's baggier, wilder second part, Marianne Elliott's revival - 25 years after the influential National Theatre production - is a monumental achievement.

London is never short of theatre temptations, whether splashy West End shows, epic dramas or bold fringe offerings. From new takes on Brecht and Buchner to Jez Butterworth's latest and a classic musical, here are some of this month's most eye-catching openings. Don't forget to check back for BroadwayWorld's reviews…

Martin Crimp's 1993 play feels sharply contemporary in this slick revival from Lyndsey Turner, with its layered deconstruction of the way that we treat both art and life as commodities - and how we mistreat one another - opening up industry satire into a far-reaching portrait of social malaise.

Lee Hall's Olivier Award-winning stage adaptation of Alan Warner's novel The Sopranos, about a raucous group of teenage girls in Edinburgh for a choir competition, arrives in the West End following an acclaimed Traverse Theatre premiere and UK tour (read our review). Dawn Sievewright, who plays outwardly confident leader Fionnula and a host of other characters, shares her experience.

'Everybody wants passion,' says Ivo van Hove in the programme interview for his latest show, but in both tone and aesthetic, his take on this doomed romance is less red-hot fire of ardour, more the cold, grey ash left in the wake of a consuming flame. It's intermittently beautiful and thoughtful, but lacks the necessary fervour that binds lover to lover, and audience to material.

Carrie Hope Fletcher has starred in numerous musicals, including Les Miserables, Mary Poppins and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, and has also published two books. She's currently playing Wednesday Addams in the UK premiere of Andrew Lippa, Marshall Brickman and Rice Elice's musical The Addams Family, which has just begun its nationwide tour.

Christopher Hampton's 1969 take on Moliere's The Misanthrope is often played with actors older than their characters, but director Simon Callow has recruited some of TV's bright young things to play the solipsistic academics. It may well attract new audiences to the West End, but this uncomfortable revival is unlikely to capitalise on that influx.

Unusually, actress Kirsty Bushell comes to Juliet later in a stellar career; her work includes everything from the title role in Salisbury Playhouse's Hedda Gabler to Disgraced at Bush Theatre and Ivo van Hove's Antigone. English National Opera boss Daniel Kramer's production, co-starring Edward Hogg and opening Emma Rice's second and final Globe season, begins previews on 22 April.

Six-time Tony winner and reigning Queen of Broadway - plus 'Olivier Award presenter', jokes partner-in-crime Seth Rudetsky in his introduction (though surely that's just a matter of time, with her Lady Day at Emerson's Bar and Grill coming to Wyndham's this summer) - lauded actress and singer Audra McDonald is the consummate pro. If further proof were needed, she's currently at Leicester Square Theatre offering a veritable master class in cabaret.

The Olivier Awards 2017 with Mastercard - the most prestigious event in the UK's theatrical calendar - takes place today, Sunday 9 April, at London's Royal Albert Hall. Check out our updating list of winners here! It's currently interval time, and there's a live Facebook show from the Oliviers - watch it below

The Olivier Awards 2017 with Mastercard - the most prestigious event in the UK's theatrical calendar - takes place today, Sunday 9 April, at London's Royal Albert Hall.

The late, great Edward Albee is certainly having a West End 'moment', but it rather places this particular revival at a disadvantage, comparing unfavourably as it does with the shattering, unforgettable Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? a few streets away.

Amidst the middle-class small talk between two couples, one reeling from the arrival of a new baby, comes a shocking confession: 'I've been raping pensioners.' What kind of monsters are we dealing with here? Well, legal ones - it's barrister speak. Having tackled the NHS in Tiger Country, Nina Raine now has the judicial system in her sights: its eccentricities, seeming unfairness, and the effect it has on those caught in its truth-bending web.

The curtain rises just high enough to reveal a long line of tapping feet: a thoroughly appropriate intro, as those feet are the real stars of the show. The plot might centre around a leading lady battle, but this loving backstage fairy tale is really a paean to the chorus - the hard-working, unceasingly toe-tapping foundation upon which musical comedy ('the two most glorious words in the English language,' per the show) is built.

When Laura Wade's Posh premiered at the Royal Court in 2010, its dark promise that these destructive student toffs - members of the Riot Club, a loosely fictional version of Oxford's Bullington - would one day run the country had a timely frisson: former club members David Cameron, George Osborne and Boris Johnson occupied Downing Street and the mayoral office respectively.