THEATRE TALK: Anything But Edinburgh

Non-Edinburgh What's On

Contrary to popular opinion, there are other things to do this summer than traipse up north to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Admittedly, the majority of London's theatrical population are up in Scotland at the moment, cavorting and drinking and watching and acting and flyering their hearts out, but there's still stuff to be seen and done down here.

National Youth Theatre's S'Warm were found at points throughout the city over the past week and weekend. They launched at Battersea Power Station on Thursday night in a pretty apocalyptic, exciting start to the narrative (which surrounds the issue of the bees disappearing, and is part of ongoing environmental programming from NYT). They were at MI6 on Thursday and at the Bank of England on Saturday and Canary Wharf on Sunday. Find out more here and do check them out if you can.

If you're looking for something more straightforward, Deathtrap opens this week. It stars Simon Russell Beale and Jonathan Groff (the former one of the foremost actors in the UK, the latter a relative newcomer, a star of the US Spring Awakening and more recently Glee, where he played boyfriend to Spring Awakening co-star Lea Michele). It's an Ira Levin thriller with a huge amount of hype behind it - considering Russell Beale's last performance was in the wonderful London Assurance, it is hopeful that the show will live up to it all. The marquee is a smoking gun (ingenious!) and tickets are reportedly selling fast.

Into The Woods has opened at the Regent's Park Open Air Theatre and despite having to cope with rather horrendous elements during its first couple of weeks, seems to have garnered mainly positive reviews, especially for Jenna Russell and Hannah Waddingham, whose turn as the Witch reportedly makes her unrecognisable.

As previously mentioned in this column, the lovely Velma Celli returns to Madame JoJo's with a fun cabaret show this Wednesday from 8-10pm, followed by Trannyshack. With the Transisters seemingly now on permanent hiatus (one member is working in Holland and another touring the UK), this is some of the best drag fun around. Check it out.

Brand spanking new

I bumped into actor Steven Webb recently and he told me of his plans to perform Departure Lounge: The Musical at the brand new theatre currently being finished off in Waterloo East (cunningly titled Waterloo East Theatre). It's exciting news - this musical is lots of fun. It originally premiered at Edinburgh a couple of years ago and starred such low-key talents as Mikey Shearer and Stuart Matthew Price. This time round, Webb is joined by Hairspray's Verity Rushworth and Liam Tamne, as well as Hollyoaks actor Chris Fountain and Harry Hepple. Shaping up to be an interesting autumn...

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