I recreated all my favourite TV tropes, from crawling through pipes to being two kids in a trenchcoat
The Producers, London musical review: the West End’s most shocking show September 16, 2025 The Producers musical review and star rating: ★★★★ Sequinned y-fronts emblazoned with swastikas, floral designs shaped into the Nazi symbol and sing-a-longs including lines like “it’s springtime for Hitler and Germany, Deutschland is happy and gay!” It could only be The Producers, the tongue-in-cheek Nazi musical within a musical written 58 years ago that, despite [...]
Wicked: Record London show sales after film’s success September 11, 2025 The global box office success of the big screen adaptation of musical Wicked helped the London stage show rake in record ticket sales last year. The film, staring Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande, was released in November 2024 and generated more than $756m (£559.2m) worldwide off the back of a successful promotional tour. It was [...]
Juniper Blood review at Donmar Warehouse: Mike Bartlett’s climate change play lacks heat August 27, 2025 Juniper Blood review and star rating: ★★★ Mike Bartlett‘s play Cock starring Jonathan Bailey and Taron Egerton became one of the most expensive plays in West End history in 2023 when seats went for north of £400. That play, like Unicorn, looked at changing attitudes towards sexuality, but another of Bartlett’s recurrent themes is climate [...]
How the Barbican Theatre has rivalled the West End for four decades August 21, 2025 Our Toast the City Awards are celebrating the City’s top spots and takes place this October. This week: the Barbican Theatre. Think of the Barbican Centre and you might picture the lakeside suntrap or Brutalist passageways that feel purposefully designed to get lost in. You might not immediately think of the Barbican Theatre, but here’s why you [...]
‘Wonderfully weird’: 7 of the best Edinburgh Fringe shows to book now August 14, 2025 City AM’s theatre writers have been catching the very best of the shows at the Edinburgh Fringe festival. We’re only reviewing productions with London transfers in the autumn, so if you can’t make it to Edinburgh this August, everything you read here is coming to the capital at a later date. From Fleabag to Flight [...]
This Grease immersive show isn’t the one that I want August 7, 2025 Grease: immersive musical review: ★★ A Titanic experience where you’re aboard the ship as it sinks, the heavily-mocked Elvis show (that I actually loved), a new Traitors experience and similar ones for Squid Game and Friends. Whatever you want to call them, experiences or immersive theatre (categorising these experiences has instigated a fierce debate raging [...]
Goodnight, Oscar review: Will & Grace star Sean Hayes is magnetic August 7, 2025 Goodnight, Oscar review and star rating: ★★★★ It’s fairly obvious why writers turn to televisual ratings to source their intrigue: every scribe knows the pain of having their stories or subjects exploited to reach bigger audiences. File Goodnight, Oscar next to a litany of West End hits on the subject, including Network at the National [...]
7 amazing things to do in London this week, from new pizza to cocktails and the return of Secret Cinema August 4, 2025 7 amazing things to do in London this week, from the return of Secret Cinema with a hyped production of Grease to unusual pizza combos and fabulous cocktails As summer trucks on, more fabulous outdoor events demand your attention: this week sees the return of Cocktails in the City, and there’s a new immersive theatre [...]
James Olivas, Evita London’s leading man, on Jamie Lloyd’s radical new production July 8, 2025 Jamie Lloyd’s new production of Evita is commanding headlines for Rachel Zegler’s nightly balcony sing-a-longs, but the show’s portrayal of her husband is arguably deserved of the same level of attention. The show is inspired by the real life marriage between Zegler’s heroine, Eva Perón, and the Argentinian leader Juan Perón. In actual fact, Juan [...]
This Bitter Earth, Soho Theatre review: Billy Porter’s playful tragedy June 25, 2025 This Bitter Earth review and star rating: ★★★★ This Bitter Earth is the UK directorial debut of Pose star Billy Porter, which in and of itself makes this an incredible LGBTQ show to catch this Pride month – but the play is about more than just its starry parts. It’s a surprisingly playful and immensely [...]