Phil Willmott
21 Jul
Reviews 
Review: THE FIX at the Union Theatre
By Phil Willmott Thursday, July 21 2016, 08:04
In 1973 the satirist Tom Lehrer famously declared satire was obsolete when a warmonger was awarded a Nobel Peace Prize. God knows what he'd make of today's politics. Only this morning the immigrant wife of an anti-immigration, right wing presidential candidate addressed a political convention with words plagiarised from A liberal First Lady. A situation so absurd that you couldn't make it up with any credibility, let alone poke fun at anything so unlikely. In such a climate it's hard for the 1997 musical by Dana P. Rowe and John Demsey, spoofing the sex and drug fuelled rise and fall of a fictional US political dynasty, to pack much of a punch when reality is so much more shocking.
18 Jul
Reviews
Review: THE STRIPPER at St James Theatre
By Phil Willmott Monday, July 18 2016, 07:28
The smart and welcoming St James Theatre near Victoria Station has just been acquired by Andrew Lloyd Webber and will become an incubator venue for new musicals in the new year. Before that happens there's plenty of musical revivals to come, modern classics Rent and The Last Five Years are scheduled for new productions following a production of mine in the main house and it's neat little cabaret bar is currently home to an intimate staging of The Stripper, an infamous flop from the 1980s with lyrics by Richard O'Brien who wrote The Rocky Horror Show.
09 Jul
Reviews
Review: UNREACHABLE at the Royal Court
By Phil Willmott Saturday, July 9 2016, 11:14
Some of the most thrilling, challenging, entertaining and exasperating theatre I've ever seen has been written and directed by Anthony Neilson. The one thing you'll never be at a Neilson play is bored. He is extraordinarily uncompromising both in what he writes and how he rehearses, always pushing at the boundaries of good taste before stepping way over the line and often discovering universal truths in the process.
04 Jul
Reviews
Review: SAVAGE Above the Arts Theatre
By Phil Willmott Monday, July 4 2016, 13:23
I first encountered the work of Claudio Macor about twenty years ago when I directed his play VENETIAN HEAT. In this he told a story of gay love and oppression set in the Italian countryside of his grandparents, during the second world war.
Since then he has created a series of stage works which explore forgotten corners of gay history and culture. His lasts work SAVAGE is no exception and it shines a light on a horrific “cure” for homosexuality, pioneered in Denmark by Nazi doctor Carl Peter Vaernet which involved surgically inserting glands into the genitals of gay prisoners.
28 Jun
Reviews
Review: GET 'EM OFF at the Above the Stag Theatre
By Phil Willmott Tuesday, June 28 2016, 08:55
I'm a big fan of the Above the Stag Theatre, the UK's only venue dedicated to in-house productions of plays and musicals aimed at the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community. It regularly premiers fascinating, provocative and skillful drama for this demographic from around the world, I've written and directed there myself, hope to again and you may recall my recent enthusiasm for their production that explored homophobia in Iran.
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