Phil Willmott
08 Aug
News 
Phelim McDermott launches the news season at English National Opera with his fresh take on the classic, AIDA
By Phil Willmott Tuesday, August 8 2017, 09:55
Good news for opera fans! It’s been announced that the innovative and inspirational director, Olivier Award-winner Phelim McDermott, will direct a new production of Aida to launch English National Opera’s 2017/18 season.
06 Aug
Casts
Craig Revel Horwood to play Miss Hannigan in Annie
By Phil Willmott Sunday, August 6 2017, 07:29
These days you need a star in a West End show to keep the box office busy. It wasn't always thus. Back in the 1980s producer Cameron Macintosh made the show itself the the main attraction with mega-hits like Les Miserables and it didn't particularly matter who was in it, the public were just excited to see Les Mis regardless of who happened to be playing Jean Vajean.
31 Jul
Reviews
Review: COMING CLEAN at the King's Head Theatre
By Phil Willmott Monday, July 31 2017, 13:53
A final piece by the late Kevin Elliot, best known for his play My Night with Reg, drew a fairly negative reaction from critics recently so it's interesting that the King's Head Theatre are reviving his very first play only weeks afterwards. It's 35 years since a premiere at the Bush Theatre and as far as I know this is the first time anyone's revisited it.
28 Jul
Reviews
Review: THE SECRET DIARY OF ADRIAN MOLE at the Menier Chocolate Factory
By Phil Willmott Friday, July 28 2017, 18:54
If you were a teenager in the 1980's the character of Adrian Mole, geeky, pretentious and utterly relatable to, will be an old friend. His hilarious take on adolescence was captured by writer Sue Townsend in a fictitious diary, first a best selling book, then a TV series, then a play, then a musical, and there were several sequels. Adrian's faded from public consciousness in the last decade or so and, alas, Townsend died in 2014. All this makes this adorable, completely new musical very welcome especially as it transports us back to his first teenage incarnation and reminds us what fun it was follow his bumbling and humbling attempts to become an intellectual and a hit with girls.
27 Jul
Reviews
Review: I LOVED LUCY at the Arts Theatre
By Phil Willmott Thursday, July 27 2017, 13:56
I must confess I couldn't pick vintage U.S sit-com mega-star Lucille Ball out of a line up and I don't think I've seen a moment of her work but for the generation before me reruns of her hit show were ubiquitous and her on screen persona seems to have been a wisecracking, goofy surrogate mum to much of the western world in the 1950s and 60s.
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