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.

Player Kings at New Wimbledon Theatre

The opportunity to see Ian McKellen in a Shakespeare play close to home was too good to miss. It was expectedly pricey so I went for the Upper Circle where my ATG membership card got me seat A11 for a measly £25.

It was billed as a version of the two plays Henry IV Parts 1 and 2 but, other than the early start time of 6:30pm, there was no clue of the runtime and it was only when a friend got to the theatre just ahead of me and discovered that it was almost four hours! Luckily I am used to long plays and had been well stocked at the usual venue, Mai Thai, beforehand.

First the bad news. Henry IV 1 & 2 are not Shakespeare's best work with the two unrelated themes, the pure history of Henry IV and the tomfoolery of the Falstaff. There were some first-night issues too where the main problem was the safety curtain that was lowered at times for dramatic effect and when it did it hid half the stage, or more, for those of us in the cheap seats.

The good news was the smooth staging (too low curtains apart) which used curtains pulled from the sides to make the scenes changes seamless allowing the stories to move smoothly.

The best news was the performances. Of course Ian McKellen was good but he was in a supporting roll and praise must also go to Richard Coyle as Henry iV. The last time I saw him on stage was in To Kill a Mockingbird. It was also good to see a cameo role by Robin Soans.

The performances, and the staging, were more than enough to make the four hours fly past entertainingly. ot a great night, Henry IV was never going to be that, but it was certainly good.

The Ocean at the End of the Lane at New Wimbledon Theatre

I saw The Ocean at the End of the Lane when it first appeared on stage at Dorfman Theatre in 2020 and it was an easy decision to go and see it again when the touring version came to New Wimbledon Theatre.

I treated myself to a seat in the front row of Dress Circle (A19) which cost a very reasonable £41.

I had not been to New Wimbledon Theatre since the very excellent Benidorm in 2019 so I was not confident that I had a plan for eating beforehand so I was very pleased to see that Mai Thai was still there. I had a really excellent red curry, with lots of flavours and textures, washed down with a pint of Singha. It was the perfect start to the eveving.

The Dress Circle did the job and I had a great view.

I remembered that I enjoyed it the first time but had forgotten the story so it was good to be able to see it as if it was a new show.

The story, like Stardust, mixed the real world with a world of magic and had an important boundary between the two. It was also a fairly simple story of a normal boy being drawn into a world of magic and having to fight daemons with the help of a young girl and her family.

The magic of the story came more from the production, e.g. the sets, costumes and lighting, than the story and it was strong magic too, creating an exceedingly rich show.

Only a little thing, but I liked the way that the cast had some regional accents and somehow Geordie felt right for a grounded man and West Country right for a magical girl.

As you would expect for a major production, all of the cast were very good and Millie Hikasa as the magical girl Lettie Hempstock impressed me the most.

Probably because it was aimed at a (much) younger audience, The Ocean at the End of the Lane never got scary despite the impressive monsters which limited its appeal to me (Coraline is much scarier) but it was all nicely done and it was thoroughly entertaining.

Benidorm Live at New Wimbledon Theatre was outrageously entertaining

I have loved Benidorm on TV for many years and so when a live show was announced I was quick to book. So quick that it was over a year before the performance that I claimed Dress Circle Row A Seat 17 for a respectable £43.50.

Judging by the packed theatre my love of Benidorm is widely shared.

I went with reasonable exceptions of being entertained and these expectations were more than exceeded. It was a laugh a minute. And then some. And then some more. It was outrageously entertaining.

Six of the regular stars made the transition from TV to stage and they each made separate entrances to huge applause. This was just one of the many things that the production got just right.

The script was typical Benidorm with a lot of great lines, a genuine story and moments of gentleness.  We had everything from hotel inspectors to Sausage In Cider jokes to a marriage proposal. It was often smutty but never crude.

The familiar characters behaved as we expected, and loved. The new characters soon established themselves too; we had a young couple reluctantly there for a couple of days, a new member of junior staff whose name people kept getting wrong and Jacqueline's gay friend who arrived with a passion for Kenneth.

Neptune's Bar also provided some genuine cabaret entertainment with the singing voice of Shelley Longworth and the tapping feet of Jake Canuso.

Adam Gillen also tried to sing but less successfully! It was interesting to see him back in this role after being knocked out by his performance in Amadeus in the serious theatre. It was easy to see why he was suited to both roles and his movement was one of the other features of the show.

Benidorm on stage was very much like Benidorm on TV but with some necessary changes, e.g. simpler sets and no external locations, and also some enhancements to take advantage of playing to an enthusiastic and knowing crowd.

I have rarely waited over a year to see a show and even more rarely seen one as entertaining as Benidorm Live.

Thoroughly Modern Millie at New Wimbledon Theatre was thoroughly entertaining

I was obviously aware of the Julie Andrews' film Thoroughly Modern Millie but I never saw it. Likewise I was aware of Strictly but had never seen that either. Despite that I was drawn to their coming together at New Wimbledon Theatre and was drawn enough to pay £44 for a premium seat, Dress Circle Row A Seat 18.

My plan was not to have a drink beforehand because I remembered just how expensive they are there but my resolve melted when I saw the large bottles of Budvar (i.e. the Czech version of the otherwise undrinkable Budweiser). I was either charged a lot for the tap water that I had with it or that pint cost me over £8. Still, it was a good pint.

It was just going in to find my seat that I asked one of the staff what the running time was and was a little surprised, and worried, to hear that it was the best part of three hours with a first half lasting 80 minutes, a decent interval and then a second half of another 60 minutes. That is not a lot longer than the usual two hours plus interval but my attention can drift in the first half and 80 minutes is a long time to struggle with a slow show.

The seat proved to be a good one with a fine view, no problems with safety rails and a decent amount of legroom.

The show opened with Millie arriving in New York from Kansas seeking bright lights and excitement. She sang the only song I knew from the show, the title song, which helped to warm the crowd up.

Then she was robbed and lost everything and, in separation, tripped up a passing man to try and get some help. Through him she found some lodgings for young actresses which was also the front for a white-slave operation led by the boarding house's owner Mrs Meers. Things got better for Millie as she got a job as a stenographer (remember shorthand?) and started to make a play for her rich boss.

The story had lots of elements to it and while some of the main threads were obvious, as they should be in a Rom Com, there was plenty in the story to keep me engaged.

At the centre of it all, of course, was Millie and Joanne Clifton sparkled in the role. Her pedigree was in dancing and while there were not many showboat dances there was dancing throughout. I especially liked the tap dancing that the office workers did while sitting at their typewriters as their desks slid around the floor.

It was this attention to detail, and Joanne Clifton's performance, that made the show. There were plenty of songs, all of which I've now forgotten, and while they did not make much of a lasting impression they did add to the mood. The comedy came from the characters and Graham MacDuff was brilliant as Millie's stuffy boss. Mrs Meers, who was supposed to be the main comedy character (I think) was somewhat less successful partially because I did not get on with her stereotypical Chinese accent. Thankfully Mrs Meers was one little setback in a long show that had a great deal going for it otherwise.

Thoroughly Modern Millie was a well crafted show that made the most of the story and the music. Throw in lots of dancing and some good characters and it was a thoroughly entertaining evening.

A lively The Car Man thrills at Wimbledon Theatre

Every time I write about dance I say that I should see more of it but, Sadler's Wells apart (and that is not very close) chances are few and far between so I make an effort to get to the ones that I can. This time that effort was forking out £36 for a seat (E23) in the fifth row of the Dress Circle.

It was an easy decision to break my own rules on pricing and seating to see The Car Man again, a show I had only seen once before way back in 2007. Not only had I enjoyed it then but it was by Matthew Bourne and I have loved everything of his that I have seen.

I try to plan my work around my theatre and had booked for a Friday so that I could work at home and then catch a couple of buses into Wimbledon for the evening show, pausing at Mai Thai on the way for something tasty to eat. I like to have a designated restaurant for each theatre that I go to regularly and Mai Thai fits the bill nicely.

In a break from what was tradition I did not go to the pub across the road or to the theatre bar before the show. I was not overly cutting down on my drinking but I was easing one or two out of the schedule just to help.

The view was much better than I expected with my fear of taller people sitting in front of me and I had a good view of the stage with no interruptions.

It had been a long time since I had last seen The Car Man so I sat down ready to be surprised and delighted all over again.

It was described as a reimagining of Carmen, rather than a retelling, and the story was very different. There was a cameo of the original in one scene with some Flamenco dancers in a bar reenacted part of her tragic story.

In The Car Man, Matthew Bourne played to all his strengths with lots of vibrant dancing, mostly in groups and with lots of things going on at the same time all across the stage. It was boisterous, energetic, flamboyant, sexy and huge fun. It may have been inspired by Carmen but there the mood is almost unremittingly gloomy (as the ending is long predicted) whereas here it was mostly jolly, despite some of the dark things that happened.

The poster at the top says it all really and, for once, was a true reflection of what the show was like. This is how I would dance if I could dance, but as I cannot dance like that I'll happily settle for watching other people do so instead.

This was, of course, a dance with a story to tell and there was plenty of acting as well as dancing, as always with Matthew Bourne. And, as with the dancing, this was not confined to the lead roles. This was an ensemble performance and a very good one too.

It was also good to see The Car Man playing to a packed house and showing that dance can be as popular and as entertaining as the familiar musicals that often show up at theatres like Wimbledon.

The only regret from the evening was realising that I had no more dance in my  diary to look forward too. Sadly, that is a recurring problem.

Anything Goes at the New Wimbledon Theatre was such fun

Two of my nearest theatres, in Richmond and Wimbledon, are part of the Ambassador Theatre Group which is bad news on two fronts, their publicity is awful so it is hard to find out when good shows are on and secondly their website is truly awful so it is hard to buy tickets when you do find something good. In this case I would have missed Anything Goes but for a promotion via another organisation that does know how to do publicity.

The attractions to me of Anything Goes was that it was another mainstream musical that I had not seen, it was by Cole Porter and the offer price was good! I am far more likely to take a punt on an unknown work if it costs me £25 or less, which is one reason that I go to off West End theatres so much.

This time I paid £20 which secured me seat F30 in the stalls. It was almost at the edge of the row but the view was perfectly fine, as the photo below shows.

I chose to work at home that day and decided to eat before the show somewhere in Wimbledon. I knew that there were plenty of restaurants near the theatre but I had eaten there too rarely to prefer, or even remember, any of them. I was lucky to find Mai Thai which was tasty, smart and inexpensive. It is now officially my favourite restaurant in Wimbledon.

I had some time to kill before the show so I went to the The Wibbas Down Inn opposite the theatre first. It is a Wetherspoons so I knew the choice of beer would be excellent and I had no difficulty in ordering a pint of something that I had never heard of before. That was certainly a much better plan than going to the theatre bar and paying over the odds for a small bottle of bland lager.

Fed and watered I took my seat ready to be entertained.

Musically the show got off to a great start as the first song after the overture was "I Get a Kick Out of You", which I first heard and loved in a version by Gary Shearston in 1974.

It soon became clear that the story was a romcom with several people involved. The number of people involved and the other complications thrown into the mix (such as unsold shares, a gangster on the run and a missing dog) made for an interesting story that easily kept my attention.

There was only one other song that I recognised, the titular Anything Goes, but the music was good throughout. Somebody else thought that Kick and Anything were the two best songs as they were both repeated later in the show, and I was perfectly happy with that.

The story and songs could have been a relatively slight meal if not for the slick production and performances. Everything about the show was nicely done from the little characterisations to the set. It was clearly a well-practised show that also managed to feel fresh and sparkly.

And it was a bonus to see Hugh Sachs as the gangster. He is, of course, famous for his role as Gavin in several series of Benidorm. He's the fourth Benidorm actor that I've seen on stage so there is still a long way to go!

Anything Goes was everything I needed at the end of a busy week. It was jolly, frothy and happy. Just the sort of things a populist musical should be.

Enjoyable Cats at New Wimbledon Theatre

Oddly enough it was curiosity that made me want to see Cats.

My curiosity was over the show's popularity and longevity.

However, I have never been that interested in the new block-buster west-end musicals that have appeared in the last thirty years or so and the only other one that I had seen previously, Les Miserables, I found laughingly bad.

I would never have thought of going to see Cats without a firm prompt that firm prompt came in the disguise of discounted tickets via work (as it had for Les Miserables). As far as I can tell, good Stalls tickets were going for just over £40, plus various fees, whereas I paid £15 for seat D3. At that price I could afford to experiment and to make a mistake.

It helped that it was at the New Wimbledon Theatre too as that was just two easy (and cheap) bus rides away.

Cats was light on story, strong on production (movement, set, costumes, etc.) and quite good on words and music. I even recognised a couple of the songs and the most famous of them, Memory (a top 10 hit for Elaine Paige in 1981), was included twice.

Being based on a series of poems, Cats was a series of scenes which the show tried to string together to make some sort of story but that was both unsuccessful and unnecessary. It worked well enough as a series of performances on a shared theme.

I expected the lyrics to be good as T S Eliot wrote most of them but I was surprised at how much I liked Andrew Lloyd Webber's music. Only one of the songs annoyed me and all the rest were pleasant enough and the music never got in the way of the words.

Most of the audience seemed to have seen Cats before and while I can understand why they do that it is not something that I would rush to do. It was all very clever and professional but having seen it once I doubt if there are any hidden depths that would reward a second visit. As a once-off it was a very enjoyable evening and I was content as a cat with cream.

West Side Story at the New Wimbledon Theatre

I'm still unconvinced by musicals as a genre but I keep giving them a try and I am enjoying most of them.

Without any of the Rodgers and Hammerstein classics around West Side Story seemed like a good alternative.

I was a little cautious and went for a cheap seat in the front row of the upper circle at the New Wimbledon Theatre. The safety rail was bit of a pain but that was why the ticket was so cheap and I was happy to accept that compromise.

I knew beforehand that West Side Story was based on Romeo and Juliet with the feuding families replaced by the gangs Sharks and Jets, but that was about it, so I settled down (a little nervously given the precarious position of my seat) to follow the story and enjoy the music.

The first surprise was the number of songs that I recognised. I knew that America came from here but not the others like Maria and Something's Coming. The later was a big surprise as I had always associated it with prog rock band Todd Rundgren's Utopia having heard a live version of this on Radio 1 in 1975. I recorded the show and played it many times.

The songs that I liked the most were the ones that I knew and hence those that were the more popular. The others were fine if not special.

The singing was much the same though Maria (Juliet) was a notable exception and her voice rang out loudly, clearly and beautifully.

The dancing was neatly choreographed and made pretty patterns on the stage.

The stage did some clever things in a simple way and managed to be a street full of tenement buildings (with the metal pull-down ladders that action movies love so much), a dance hall, a bridal shop and a plot of derelict land under a highway.

The story surprised me. I expected Tony and Maria to die, though I have seen a ballet version of Romeo and Juliet where they both lived, so when something else happened it was unexpected. Probably not to most in the audience who seemed to know the show quite well and cheered each song enthusiastically.

I was also surprised, though only because I had not really thought about it, that the Sharks/Jets conflict was not just territorial, it was racial. These days, simplifying horribly, gang wars are shown as being between different Afro-Americans groups but this was between recently arrived whites (Tony's family were Polish) and even more recently arrived Puerto Ricans (referred to as PRs and Spiks).

Personally, I think that racist terms like that should be removed from shows where it is not central to the plot. The Montagues and Capulets are both from Verona and did not need racist arguments to hate each other.

Overall West Side Story did a lot of nice things rather nicely. It never dropped in to the mundane but then it never quite sparkled either and it left my ambivalent attitude towards musicals much as it was before.

South Pacific comes to Wimbledon

I had been reintroduced to musical theatre almost by accident and soon climbed to the top of the musical mountain to taste Les Miserables only to be bitterly disappointed.

I could have given up on musicals at that point or I could have persevered and tried one of the established classics. I am an adventurous soul so I decided to try again and was pleased to see that South Pacific was in town.

Unfortunately "in town" carries a price tag that I was not prepared to pay for an experiment so I waited for the show to head out of town to the provincial charms of Wimbledon.

I went in my usual state of few expectations. I knew little about the show, other than the all-important fact that it is by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein, and I thought that I knew none of the songs.

The pricing of seats varies less when the top price is so much lower than in the West End so I pushed the boat out a little and went for a front row seat in the Dress Circle.

There I could sit happily and either join in the merry mumble of conversation going on around me or read the introduction on the safety screen.

The conductor arrived to some applause and started the overture. That caused some of the conversation to stop, but not very much.

From what I could hear above the hubbub it was clear that I did know some of the tunes, I just did not know where they came from.

South Pacific tells the love story of  Nellie Forbush, a U.S. Navy nurse from Little Rock Arkansas, and Emile de Becque, a much older French plantation owner.

The setting is an island in the south-west Pacific towards the end of World War II, close to the front-line with Japan. That provides us with the cast of characters, i.e. mostly American service people of one sort or another with a smattering of locals, and with a major plot line that takes Emile on a dangerous mission behind enemy lines.

Nellie and Emile are all but betrothed at the start of the play. They are clearly in love despite having met only recently.

They met, of course, on "Some Enchanted Evening" which provides the first big hit of the afternoon. Emile sings it beautifully too.

Nellie also gets plenty of chances to shine with other classics like I'm Gonna Wash That Man Right Outta My Hair, sung to her friends when things cool between them.

The reason for this cooling is rather dated. Nellie is not upset that Emile was married previously or that his two children still live with him; the objection is that his ex-wife (now dead) was coloured.

South Pacific stretches out in several directions with major plots (the war) running alongside lesser ones (the servicemen's attempt to witness native girls dancing on another island).

There is another love story too, though this one ends less well and is also a little disturbing to watch as the girl looks incredibly young.

All of the twists and turns and ups and downs make this a rich canvass on which to heap on the music to produce something very good.

The cast are superb with just one slight blemish (Billis did not impress me) and while Nellie and Emile are, rightly, the stars there was enthusiastic applause at the end for several of the other characters.

Bloody Mary is certainly worth a mention here. She first appears as a comic character, a local woman selling grass skirts to the servicemen, and you do not really expect her to sing. Then she does a Susan Boyle and blows you over.

South Pacific may not have completely restored my faith in musical theatre but I'll be getting a ticket the next time that a Rodgers and Hammerstein show is around.

Matthew Bourne's Nutcracker on tour

The three nice things about Wimbledon Theatre are it's a classic Victorian theatre that has been sympathetically updated, it is easy for me to get to by bus and, for reasons that escape me, it is considered to be out of London and so it attracts many good shows during their provincial tours after a successful spell in Central London.

That is why I found myself there to see Matthew Bourne's Nutcracker after its run at Sadler's Wells.

I missed the show then as I always felt that Nutcracker is a weak ballet with even less plot than usual and somewhat flimsy music. There are some nice tunes and some nice set pieces with nothing to string it together.

But if anybody can refresh a stale ballet it is Matthew Bourne.

The story opens in an orphanage where all the children are working hard cleaning and scrubbing before going to bed.

This takes you straight in to one of Matthew Bourne's strengths, ensemble dancing with the so stage full of action it is hard to know what to watch or who to follow. The scene is grim but the dancing is exuberant.

We then meet the orphanages owners and their two spoilt children. They bring simple decorations and a simpler tree in preparation for Christmas.

The real purpose of this is soon revealed when the orphanage's governors pay a visit and they distribute some equally simple present to the children.

In this version Clara's present is an ordinary doll, not a soldier. I'm not even sure that it is still a nutcracker, not that this is material to either version of the story.

Things then continue in the familiar vein with the doll getting broken, the toys being locked away for safe-keeping and Clara having a dream that features her doll come alive and the magical kingdom of Sweetieland.

There Bourne's production is a marked improvement on the original giving some narrative shape to a series of themed dances.

Here Clara is trying to gain entrance to a party but has no invitation. As she waits outside a series of genuine guests arrive and give us a display of their dancing skills before skipping inside. The burly doorman stops Clara from following each time.

Bourne gives these small groups of dancers exotic things to do but keeps well away from the weird. This is modern dance that is rooted in traditional dance.

Clara finally finds a way in where she finds all the other guests arrayed on a very pink layered cake that is leaning slightly as a cute angle.

Now the groups of dancers can interact again and we get more exhilarating ensemble dancing before the dream ends and we return to the orphanage.

There the doll is discovered to be still alive (he's a Prince, of course) and he and Clara escape from the orphanage as the curtain falls.

Matthew Bourne makes the most of Tchaikovsky's music throughout giving us bombast and grace as required while be continually innovative and thrilling. I must have looked like some sort of idiot because I was grinning with delight all the way through.

You could argue that Nutcracker is Matthew Bourne by the numbers but when the numbers are that good there is no reason to change a winning formula. This is not his best ballet, that's Swan Lake or maybe Edward Scissorhands, but it is still a far better ballet than most and is comfortably the best Nutcracker that I've seen.

Matthew Bourne's Swan Lake at Wimbledon Theatre

When I saw Matthew Bourne's Swan Lake at Sadler's Wells at the end of last year I ended my review by saying that I was looking forward to seeing it again. Now I have.

Then I thought that it would be at Sadler's Wells again but Swan Lake is spreading its wings and is touring to places like New York, Milan and Wimbledon. The later is easily reachable by bus, a 65 or 371 and a 57 take me door-to-door. so that's where I went. Milan looks tempting though...

It was a late decision to go (only because I found out about it late) so the best seat left was some way back but it was dead centre so that was OK. The theatre itself was deeply unimpressive being almost a carbon copy of Richmond which I hate equally because of the way that they have preserved the uncomfortable seats, poor sight-lines and dead acoustics. Give me a modern theatre like Sadler's Wells, Glyndebourne or the Linbury every time.

But it's the show that matters and Matthew Bourne's Swan Lake is one hell of a show.

The music helps, of course, and the familiar opening bars grab your full attention and immediately the theatre is (almost) forgotten and you are swept in to the story. The music plays an important role throughout and despite all that is going on the stage all the time the music seems to stand out more in this production than in the more traditional ones.

The richness of action on the stage is a Matthew Bourne trademark and one of the reasons why it is so rewarding to watch the the show again. An example that comes to mind is the scene in the night club (Swank!) where the patrons dance in pairs and it is frustratingly difficult to decide who to watch.

The choreography is sumptuous, vibrant and dramatic. The shapes the bodies make individually and collectively are exaggerated without being forced. You can get a good idea of this from the Swan Lake Tour photos on Flickr.

It's hard to heap any more superlatives on the performance than I have already done so I'll just say that the previous time I saw this I wanted to see it again soon and this time I was seriously tempted to try and get tickets for the evening show. It really is that good. It's one of the very very best shows of any kind that I have ever seen. I will be seeing again just as soon as I can and I recommend that you do too.