Rent review – Jonathan Larson’s New York bohos move into the West End and unpack their passions
Tom Stoppard theatre, LondonStranger Things’ Gaten Matarazzo leads the grief-stricken 90s musical about friends living under the threat of AidsIs Rent one of the musical greats? It’s a forever fan favourite – this new production extended its run even…
Franz & Marie review – Woyzeck folk musical finds heart amid the horror
Charing Cross theatre, LondonBüchner’s jagged masterpiece about a soldier’s descent is told with enchanting and stirring songs that occasionally defuse its stark terrorWhen Georg Büchner died aged 23 in 1837, he left behind Woyzeck as a bundle of papers…
Lourdes gets a Vegas glow-up at Dublin theatre festival, where canvases are slashed
A musical about a drama group’s pilgrimage and reflections on activist art join an intriguing show about lost languagesIn a Dublin theatre festival programme tackling heavy themes of racism, conflict and prejudice, Lourdes! The Musical (★★★★☆) promises…
Forty years of the Phantom of the Opera – the show that wouldn’t die: ‘People come back to hear the impossible’
As Andrew Lloyd Webber’s enduring gothic melodrama celebrates its 40th birthday, producer Cameron Mackintosh and cast members from down the years recall what makes it so specialThere is something about Andrew Lloyd Webber’s masterly musical The Phantom…
‘A joyful place’: a new museum coaxes Austrians to embrace The Sound of Music
Sixty years after the film’s release, Salzburg is embracing a Hollywood classic it once kept at arm’s lengthLet’s start at the very beginning – famously, a very good place to start.Just two decades after the second world war, a Hollywood crew descended…
‘A couple of times people walked out’: how an Anne Frank musical became the hottest theater ticket of the year
The creators and stars of Slam Frank on their off-Broadway production - which reimagines the Holocaust victim as a pansexual rapperIt’s difficult to not invoke the term “woke” when discussing Slam Frank, the 2025 musical that reimagines Anne Frank as a…