Dear Evan Hansen at New Wimbledon Theatre

When Dear Evan Hansen first hit the London stage a few years ago I heard good things about it and when this tour was announced late in 2023 the promotional blurb explained that it was "THE OLIVIER, TONY and GRAMMY AWARD-WINNING BEST MUSICAL". That attracted my attention.

My ATG+ membership gave me a great deal on the first night at New Wimbledon Theatre so in November 23 I paid just £29 for my seat Dress Circle A17. Friends and relatives were also tempted by the deal and I took bought the maximum four tickets allowed.

When we arrived at the theatre, just after 7pm, and joined the messy series of queues to get in we saw the "House Full" signs which boosted out expectations for the evening even further. Full of hope we took our excellent seats in the best part of the house and waited for the show to start.

I hated it. We all did.

The story was vaguely interesting and the set was very good, particularly the scene changes, but the characters were superficial, the music was  bland, all the songs sounded the same and the singing was only competent.

I struggle to find anything positive to say about it, other than it was better than Six.

Kingston Society: Trams and Trolley Buses

I have always been a heavy user and a fan of public transport so a Kingston Upon Thames Society public meeting on the local transport history was unmissable.

I was not entirely sure what to expect in terms of the range and depth of the topics covered and in the end I was slightly disappointed in both, we did not get much of an insight on when trams are a better option than buses and we did not see the details of the various plans for tram/light railway proposals that had been discussed over the years.

However, it was interesting to hear about the proposed schemes, some of which I had not been aware of previously despite my ongoing-interest in local issues over the last forty years or so.

The Q&A session was good too, bringing up topics (like trams v buses) and details of old routes that had not been covered in the main talk.

It also got me thinking more about trams and where they could be used locally and in doing so I thought a lot about Prague which has an excellent public transport system of buses, trams and metro (I lived there for a while so know the transport infrastructure well).

The speaker seemed to approaching the issue with the idea that all trams are good and we should have lots more of them but we need to think about where they could apply in London which has extensive Rail, Underground and bus networks.

The big advantage trams have over buses is that they run separate from other traffic while buses are in that traffic and run slowly with frequently delays as a result.  This puts trams in direct conflict with cars which is probably why politicians are against them.

Clearly trams provide the same sort of services as trains, for example when I go to Wimbledon (which is several times a month) I catch a train from Norbiton. I could catch a 57 bus but that is much slower. That means trams only really make sense where there is no equivalent rail or underground options and as these are both extensive networks in London that means the gaps to be filled need some work to identify.

These gaps are covered by buses, even if changes are required, so what we are looking for is routes that are busy enough to justify the capacity and long enough to justify a faster option with fewer stops.

I am not sure what information TfL has to help them to plan things like this as (as far as I am aware) they only count when people get on buses and so they do not know how long individual journeys are. For example, on the 65 route do they know how many people travel from Kingston beyond Richmond. 

The obvious place to look for gaps in the network for trams is radial routes where these do not currently exist. TfL is obviously aware of this and the Supper Loop bus is part of their solution.

Looking closer to home, I am struggling to find a need for trams in Kingston which, thanks to an accident of history, has a radial route of sorts that goes to places like Richmond, Twickenham, New Malden and Wimbledon.

North of Kingston is a different story but while I might like an easy route to places like Hayes or Wembley I would be surprised if there were enough people like me to justify laying tracks.

While this speculation is fun there is very little prospect of any significant transport projects in Kingston because there is no real problem that needs solving.

Picture You Dead at Richmond Theatre

I have never been a reader of detective fiction and rarely watch it on television these days so I had no idea (before I looked it up just now) that Picture Your Dead was the eighteenth Roy Grace story by Peter James but it looked interesting enough to go to see a stage adaptation.

As usual I went on the opening night to take advantage of the ATG+ offer of Dress Circle seat A23 for £36. 

I did not take a picture of the set, a mistake in retrospect, which worked like I've seen TV sets work with all the locations, more or less, on stage at the same time with the action moving between them. 

Stage left was a flat where a young couple lived, stage right was an artist's studio that morphed into a collector's private gallery and stage front was an undefined place where Roy Grace and another police officer discussed the case.

The only quibble was that some of the action was right in the front-left corner where the high numbered seats could not see, including mine.

The story was a good one with lots going on and going on quite quickly as things happen or were uncovered. And while most of the main thread was guessable, this was not a whodunnit more a willtheygetawaywithit there was plenty enough story to keep me fully engaged throughout.

Helping with the storytelling was an excellent ensemble cast with lots of strong believable characters played convincingly. 

The story, the staging and the acting made this an extremely entertaining and rewarding evening.

The icing on the cake was the double-twist at the end which changed the whole nature of the story and provided a good ending. The first of those twists was so unexpected and delivered so quickly that I am pretty sure from the overheard comments that some of the people behind me had missed, it was that good.

I had expected Picture You Dead at Richmond Theatre to be an "average" evening at the theatre, admittedly I have quite a high average, but it was much more than that. 

Marcus Brigstocke at Landmark Arts Centre

Once upon a Time the whole family were big fans of The Now Show (Radio 4 comedy) and went to see recordings when that was an easy thing to do, and we did it with military precision to get seats in the middle of the front row. At its peak, The Now Show included John Holmes, Mitch Benn and Marcus Brigstocke.

Marcus Brigstocke also did a radio comedy programme called I've Never Seen Star Wars and we bagged best seats for a recording of that too and were rewarded by Brigstocke making fun of eldest son's long hair.

Our final encounter with Brigstocke in this series was when he and Phill Jupitus did some Edinburgh warm-ups at Jacksons Lane in 2012.

Then, out of the blue, the local Landmark Arts Centre, a mere 15 minutes walk away, announced that he would be bringing his latest show, Vitruvian Mango, to the venue. 

No thought was required to fork out £18 for an unallocated seat.

Lots of people had the same idea and the venue was all but full when I arrived about quarter of an hour before the show.

Just enough time to get a beer at to find a reasonable seat towards the back.

The show was a series of stories on what being a man means today. Many of these were personal and included trying to het to close to women when walking late at night and appearing on Celebrity MasterChef with Greg Wallace.

The stories were funny and also made a point, they were most definitely "woke" which the Radio 4 listeners of Teddington appreciated.

The delivery was very much as expected, and experienced before, with longish lead-ins and wry punchlines. That produced a steady stream of steady humour that lasted something like an hour and a half plus a break. That was a lot of good jokes in one evening.

Rainbow in Rock at The Cavern (28 Feb 25)

Seeing Rainbow in Rock playing at The Cavern in Raynes Park is a great habit to be in and this was my first chance to do so in 2025.

A lot about the evening followed the familiar lines with plenty of good songs played brilliantly, lots of people I knew there and some decent beer (Wainwright) to drink. Any evening that ends with Stargazer, Highway Star and Smoke on the Water has to be a great evening.

There was one slight, and good, change which this photo reveals. The keyboards had a bigger influence this time and that was due to increasing the number of sets of keys from one (played at an odd angle) to three.

Pride & Prejudice* (*sort of) at Richmond Theatre (3rd time)

Having seen Pride & Prejudice* (*sort of) twice in one week when it first came to Richmond (Monday 13 and Saturday 18 Feb 2023) I was always going to see it on its return. 

It was clearly a popular show and that helps to explain why seat Dress Circle A24 was £34 this time when it had been £28 two years ago. That is still a very generous price for such a good show and here my ATG+ Membership helped with the usual £10 off for the first night.

Pre=theatre followed the well established ritual of a Tofu Firecracker in Wagamama and a large bottle of Budvar in the theatre bar before the show started.

The set looked much the same as before, as expected, though the positioning of the props was slightly different.

The main difference from the original show was the cast, though the distinct lack of information about this on the ATG website is a familiar and inexcusable problem.

The new Darcy was the centre of the story, as the old one had been, and so Rhianna McGreevy had the biggest impact, at least I think it was her playing the role.

There were other small changes that I noticed too and I am sure that there were plenty of others that I missed. For example, they sang Big Boys Don't Cry last time but not this. 

Even with the cast changes, it was very much the show that I had seen and loved twice in 2023 and I loved it again in 2025. It remained an entertaining mix of stories and characters mixed with dollops of humour and song.

A Streetcar Named Desire at Noel Coward Theatre

I saw this production of A Streetcar Named Desire at Almeida Theatre just over two years before and, despite some misgivings, I really liked it. Then I had seen it on my own but its brief return gave me the chance to take my wife as her birthday treat.

The move to the west end upped the price a lot and having paid £25 for a front row seat the first time I paid £56.7 for Grand Circle C25.

My two previous visits to Noel Coward Theatre were also to Grand Circle and for similar prices so I knew that this was a reasonable place to sit and a fair price to pay. Being able to check where I have sat before is one reason that I note that part of the experience.

Seat C25 was end of the row and gave me an excellent view. The brain quickly adapts to static obstacles like the safety rail and it made no difference to my enjoyment.

Like last time, Streetcar got off to a bad start with some excessively loud and pointless drums and some equally pointless choreography. 

Then Blanche DuBois started to speak and the play started for real and everything was alright.

Possibly because I had seen this play a few times and this production once before, I was able to immerse myself in the dialogue and revel in its richness rather then having to spend any effort following the story.

It helped immensely that the dialogue was delivered with extreme skill; Patsy Ferran spoke frenetically and at length while waving her arms while Paul Mescal was blunt and loud.

There was some more distraction from drums and rain but these were minor and while these were unnecessary and unhelpful they were little and did nothing to detract from sheer brilliance of the script.

This was (almost( perfect theatre and I loved (almost) every minute of it.

Hoaxwind at The Oak (15 Feb 25)

After something of a hiatus (including Covid), Hoaxwind have been performing fairly regularly again and I have been reasonably regular in going to see them but completely hopeless in noting those concerts here. I will try to do better.

The Oak is not a great pub for music due to its "U" shape (with the band playing at the top end of the right arm of the "U") and is sometimes not a great pub for a pub with a very limited choice of beers. This night I was drinking Guinness because there were no cask bitters available.

The right arm of the "U" was full, as usual, so I was standing in the base of it, as usual. The view of the band is not great there and the sound quality is not great either but there is space to stand without being jostled and somewhere to put your drink so most of the people that I knew were in that area. And there were quite a few people that I knew out that night.

Hoaxwind have changed personnel a few times over the years, and a two of the originals were there watching, but their sound and set has not changed that much and we got a series of great songs (mostly) from the late '70s. Obvious highlights included Spirit of the Age and Hassan I Sahba.

It is good to see Hoaxwind back performing regularly and I look forward to seeing them again soon.