2 h. ago Into the Woods review, Bridge Theatre – Stephen Sondheim revival is a thing of lush and arresting beauty

A lavish production that plays to the musical’s strengths

Events

38 h. ago First Look Images Released for ‘Into The Woods’ at the Bridge Theatre, London

First Look Images Released for ‘Into The Woods’ at the Bridge Theatre, London  The Arts Shelf

Politics

43 h. ago Into the Woods extends its run at the Bridge Theatre in London

Into the Woods extends its run at the Bridge Theatre in London  West End Theatre

Politics

1 week ago Why Meghan Markle's first public engagement with the late Queen was carried out 'too early' in her royal career

In June 2018, Meghan and the Queen opened Cheshire's Mersey Gateway Bridge and Chester's Storyhouse Theatre before attending a lunch together at the Town Hall.

Politics

3 w. ago Jeeves Again review – new Jeeves and Wooster stories by celebrity fans

This collection of new short stories about Bertie and his valet pays homage to the genius of PG Wodehouse – just in time for ChristmasAs with most of the giants of late 19th- and early 20th-century English literature, the vast majority of PG Wodehouse’s readers today are non-white. Perhaps it was brutal colonial indoctrination that ensured the modern descendants of the aspirant imperial middle classes from Barbados to Burma, with their tea caddies, gin-stuffed drinks cabinets and yellowing Penguin paperbacks, still devour Maugham, Shaw and Kipling. Perhaps they just have good taste.Wodehouse’s detractors are many – Stephen Sondheim (“archness tweeness flimsiness”), Winston Churchill (“He can live secluded in some place or go to hell as soon as there is a vacant passage”), the Inland Revenue – but for millions around the world he remains the greatest comic writer Britain has ever produced. And he clearly still sells here, as this collection of a dozen new officially sa...

Politics

3 w. ago The flop that finally flew: why did it take 40 years for Sondheim’s Merrily We Roll Along to soar?

Its 1981 New York premiere was a disaster but this told-in-reverse musical became a Tony award-winning hit with Daniel Radcliffe. The film version is a tear-jerking joyI have made enough mistakes as a critic to feel mildly chuffed when a verdict is vindicated. In 1981 I wrote excitedly about a new Stephen Sondheim musical, Merrily We Roll Along, that I had seen in preview in New York; reviled by reviewers and shunned by the public, it then closed two weeks after opening. In 2023-24 the very same musical ran for a year on Broadway, won four Tony awards and was hailed by the critics. Fortunately a live performance of that Maria Friedman production was filmed and I would urge you to catch it when it’s released in cinemas next month.I say “the very same musical” but that is not strictly accurate. Based on a 1934 play by George S Kaufman and Moss Hart, it is still the same story, told in reverse chronological order, of dissolving relationships: a success-worshipping composer and movie pr...

Politics