Tim Wright News

'Comedy is tragedy that happens to other people' writes Angela Carter in her 1992 book Wise Children and that is the starting point for Emma Rice's furiously fast adaptation in this, the first outing for her newly formed theatre company of the same name.

BroadwayWorld presents a comprehensive weekly roundup of regional stories around our Broadway World, which include videos, editor spotlights, regional reviews and more. This week, we feature HAMILTON, BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, and More!

Having the entire Motown back catalogue to work with must be a dream starting point for any jukebox musical. There are decades worth of hit after hit to cram in. And cram them in Motown The Musical certainly does. 66 of them to be precise. It's a whistle-stop tour of all of Motown's greatest artists.

'Alright me babbers!' is the shrill cry from the Ugly Sisters at this year's panto offering from the Bristol Hippodrome. The local references are lapped up by a fervent audience who are ready for laughs and spectacle this Christmas. On both points, Cinderella delivers in bucketloads.

This Christmas, instead of merely treading the boards at Tobacco Factory Theatres, the actors are treading in between the boards in a delightful adaptation of Mary Norton's The Borrowers, a story about a family of tiny people, no bigger than a crayon.

'Some would say change is inevitable' and nowhere more so than Clybourne Park, a street in Chicago in the 1950s where the first black family are about to move in.

Jukebox musicals are tricky things to get right. Especially if the artist concerned hasn't had a particularly eventful career. Thankfully, The Four Seasons at the centre of Jersey Boys have a veritable collection of criminal records, mafia connections and a whole heap of unrefined talent.

Opening this month at the Sutherland School Of Arts is Shire Music Theatre's production of a holiday classic from the writer of the classic, The Music Man!, and based on the movie of the same name, Miracle on 34th Street features a book and score by Meredith Willson.

If people really do have layers, then Yasmina Reza's God Of Carnage is 80 minutes of stripping them away. Removing the layers of politeness and civility one by one until you're left with the core, for better or worse.

As one of the final so called mega-musicals of the 1980s, Miss Saigon could be forgiven if it felt a little dated by 2018. Thankfully, there's not one bit of tiredness about this re-booted version, originally seen in London in 2014 for its 25th Anniversary.

There's an old rocking chair with a threadbare cushion in the corner of small living room near Brooklyn Bridge, New York. In it sits Eddie Carbone, our tragic hero, reading the paper. He smells of coffee from the sacks he's been unloading at the docks. A hard-working man providing for his wife Beatrice, and his orphaned niece Catherine who is by now a young woman, ready to fly the nest.

Pop music and musicals make good bedfellows for two main reasons. Firstly, pop music has a kind of duality - a song can mean entirely different things in different contexts. Secondly, pop music normally has just the right amount of sentimentality. The Band is a demonstration of how to harness both these qualities and bundle them into two hours of entertainment.

The song-writing partnership of Carole King and Gerry Goffin was such a formidable force in the sixties that even Lennon and McCartney often spoke about wanting to emulate them. It's with this partnership then, that Beautiful: The Carol King Musical spends most of it's time.

In our new series, BroadwayWorld UK writers nominate the shows they'd love to see revived!

A looming European referendum, a Labour party internally divided and drastic spending cuts. You could be forgiven for thinking that James Graham's This House is set just a few years ago. In fact, we're back in 1974 with a hung parliament and another election seemingly imminent.

The world premiere of playwright Yusuf Toropov's AN UNDIVIDED HEART receives a stunning mounting by The Echo Theater Company and Circle X Theatre Co. Director Chris Fields sure-handedly guides his talented cast through the involving story of a passionate young priest striving to do the right thing. In this case, publish an expose on the pedophilia prevalent in the Catholic church.

Charting the rise of Cilla Black's pop career is tough ask for a musical. She may have been an entertainer of superlative quality, but she lacks the back catalogue that is the engine room of similar jukebox style shows.

The Bristol Old Vic has opened it's 'Year of Change' in spectacular fashion in this riveting new translation of Chekhov's final play The Cherry Orchard.

Circle X Theatre Co. announced today that Kate Jopson will become the new Artistic Director of the critically acclaimed theatre company effective May 1, 2018.

Setting a musical in 1960s Baltimore against a backdrop of increasing racial tension between white and black American's doesn't exactly scream feelgood musical. Yet Hairspray manages to achieve a rare thing- a musical with all the schmaltz you could want but with just enough of a message stop you forgetting it.