A Killer Party review – Jason Manford hosts cheery, tuneful murder mystery

Available onlineThe cast of a whodunnit are all suspects when an impresario is found dead in this likably silly, hummable showBlackpool impresario Varthur McArthur has a doozy of an idea for a new show, a circus/seafaring whodunnit subtitled Death on t…

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Listen Up review – a standup, a rapper and a playwright in a lonely theatre

Available onlineLauren Pattison, Kay Greyson and Richard Boggie deliver audio plays about stage disasters, a sobering drinks interval and playing to an audience of noneSome of the finest lockdown digital theatre has addressed the absence of its real-wo…

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General Secretary review – satire of world politics misses its targets

Available onlineNot sure what you would do if you were given absolute power? Unfortunately, nor do the duo Thick’n’Fast in this lightweight fantasyWe may all, under lockdown, have fallen prey to feelings of powerlessness. In reaction, Georgie Thomas an…

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Beware the actoplasm! Spoof thespian Nicholas Craig returns

The mock classical actor created by Nigel Planer and Christopher Douglas scaled the heights at the RSC and the ‘Nash’. Now, he’s ready for a comebackIf you’ve ever marvelled at an actor “truthpumping”, “perf-quaking” or spraying their “actoplasm” acros…

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‘I’m optimistic – hell, yeah’: stars of music and theatre on one year of Covid

In the second of our two-parter, rock stars, roadies, actors, dancers, composers and comics describe how their lives have been transformed without live shows – and imagine what now lies ahead‘The nation needed a rescue from despair’: Part 1 of culture’…

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They move in mysterious ways: the delirious thrill of Figs in Wigs

The identically dressed quintet combines dance, comedy and DIY electro-punk in a world they have created for themselvesHow to describe the joy of watching people dancing in unison? Anthropologists talk about synchronous activities leading to a sense of…

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Eddie Perfect gets introspective: ‘I had some success and some pretty epic public failures’

Broadway critics sneered at Perfect’s ‘Australian-bred’ musicals Beetlejuice and King Kong, but in his new stage show he has the last laughThey say the best revenge is a life lived well, but Eddie Perfect has trumped that. The savage theatre critics we…

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All the fret of the fringe: Annie Griffin’s cringe-filled trip to the Edinburgh festival

Our series on films about theatre continues with a boozy, darkly funny comedy that captures the event’s pick’n’mix qualityNo matter how much you miss theatre, you still wouldn’t want to see Lakes Sister, an earnest one-woman show about Dorothy Wordswor…

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Hot property: Jamie Demetriou on the rise of Stath Lets Flats

In the first of a series exploring the stage origins of hit comedies, the actor remembers creating the delusional letting agent at Bristol University“For a lot of series one, I don’t like Stath as a character,” says Jamie Demetriou, the comedian, actor…

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Mischief Movie Night In review – make a musical with the masters of impro

Available onlineSofa-bound audiences help the team behind The Play That Goes Wrong to create spontaneous and funny stories on screenThey cornered the West End comedy market. They made it on TV. Now Mischief Theatre is coming for your streaming devices,…

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