Gary Naylor - Page 22

Jason Kravits brings his big voice and madcap improv skills to London's leading cabaret room and the result is just what January needs.

Once shows all its crowdpleasing credentials in this new touring production with a tremendous cast doing full justice to its score and carrying a somewhat corny plot to a standing ovation curtain.

The Union Theatre's Essential Classics season kicks off with Phil Willmott's updating of a classic with much to say about England in 2020.

Richard Eyre's production gets yet another run out 25 years on, but it's so beautiful and brilliantly sung, no further justification is required.

BWW Reviewer Gary Naylor picks his 2019 highlights

Cinderella delivers a true family pantomime that mixes spectacular sets and costumes with plenty of laughs in a show that doesn't push back any boundaries, but delivers what its audience wants at Christmas.

The Ocean at the End of the Lane offers a spectacular theatrical experience, but may leave some viewers cold with its whimsy and unwillingness to explore human relationships in depth.

Sasha Regan revisits her 2015 production of the 1996 musical to deliver a splendid show for Christmas, with a relevance and harder edge that was missing a little four long years ago.

Two years on, Otello is revived in all its austere majesty, albeit a majesty that can be demanding to watch across a three hours running time.

Ravens: Spassky vs Fischer takes us to Iceland in 1974 for the World Chess Championship, a clash between two very different men and two very different systems but with much that is not so different to the politics of today.

This production pares back Chekhov's original text and foregrounds key themes with just a hint that Vanya even has something to say about the key political issue of the day.

Sam Ra's updating of Anthony Shaffer's much produced and adapted Sleuth takes it into the 21st century without really adding much save some difficulties that are not fully resolved.

Scrooge, the ghosts and a very Tiny Tim just an arm's length away in a fine adaptation of Dickens' timeless tale.

Hunger, adapted from controversial Norwegian, Knut Hamsun's, early career novel, brings us a man alienated from an uncaring world - as much a fixture on the fringes of our city some 130 years since the book was published.

David McVicar's compelling new production of Benjamin Britten's last opera is an extraordinary tour-de-force that takes you inside a troubled mind and leaves you as ill-at-ease as you might expect, but strangely uplifted too, the beauty present in even a dying world underlined and celebrated.

Kwami Odoom talks about his life as an actor and about his role in Hunger, at the Arcola Theatre until 21 November.

La Clique is a fast-paced spectacle that astonishes and entertains in equal measure, making for a good night out on the town.

Shakespeare at the Tobacco Factory have a lot of fun with their London transfer of Shakespeare's battle of the sexes, but not every decision pays off and they need to be more sympathetic to the unique pros and cons of this remarkable venue.

Reputation has its flaws, but it also has some wonderfully worked songs, well sung by a talented cast.

A big Harry Potterish serpent, a Salad Daysy enchanted glockenspiel, a Scooby-Dooish birdman, a pre-Ford Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and enough underground conspiracies to keep the most fervent follower of QAnon frothing at the mouth - what's not to like?