Theatre News and Reviews

The Whitehall Theatre around the corner from 10 Downing Street has always been a bit of a white elephant since the 1960s when the farces for which it was once famous went out of fashion. Then about ten years ago it was converted into two theatres, The Trafalgar Studios, one which seats around 300 and a tiny little basement studio that seats fifty. Last week I had the chance to see shows in both spaces.

Upstairs, director Jamie Lloyd is in his second year of artistic directing great productions of interesting plays usually with a star in the cast. Martin Freeman had just finished a run there in Richard III and for the first time a guest director, the rather brilliant Sam Yates, had taken the reins and revived a hit comedy from 1997, East is East by Ayub Khan-Din.

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Despite knowing more songs than I thought of the Kinks’ extensive back catalogue, this musical didn’t “really get me going” and was definitely not a “sunny afternoon.” This particular songwriter should stick to doing that – writing a musical storyline was not his forte.

“It’s all about the atmosphere” says the lead character Ray Davies (John Dagleish) just before the last (and best) song of this particular musical. And he’s not wrong. But whilst most of the audience was up on their feet dancing and singing along, I was sat at a table wondering why I wasn’t doing the same. The atmosphere for me was lacking in this production, I couldn’t help but think that it came up short against other jukebox musicals in the West End at the moment (Jersey Boys is my gold standard in this category).

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