Tim Wright - Page 2

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.

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.

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.

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.

There were more than a few raised eyebrows when the all new Factory Company from Tobacco Factory Theatres announced it's first play would be a Shakespeare. Having moved the acclaimed Shakespeare at The Tobacco Factory company from their usual Spring slot to accommodate its inaugural season, it seemed strange to then open with a Shakespeare- an area that this theatre seemed to have all sewn up. 

Families are tricky things. They have the capacity to love and frustrate us like no one else. It is little wonder they provide such a rich vein for dramatists. In Andrew Bovell's Things I Know To Be True we're with the Price family who have four grown up children, all at different stages of flying the nest.

Tim Wright reflects on drama schools charging fees for auditions

I loved Hamilton when I saw it. I paid £57.50 for a seat in the middle of the top tier of the newly refurbed Victoria Palace Theatre. It was pretty expensive, but I made my peace with it. The show was everything I wanted it to be.

Touring West End shows have a dicey history. They used to have a reputation for being the poorer cousin of their London counterparts, featuring chopped-down sets and losing most of their star casts somewhere by the M25.