Enjoyed this enormously last night. If you can stomach the idea of theatre on a Monday night, there were plenty of the good seats available and a hefty discount should be possible (I certainly had one).
This is South Pacific on steroids. Who’d’ve thought that such an old tale could be made to seem so fresh. The male chorus is wonderful: the song and dance man is alive and well and performing nightly in well cut fatigues at the Shaftesbury. The story has bite. The songs, whilst not particularly memorable, are well-staged and excellently sung. (The band occasionally overwhelmed the singers – but that’s a minor quibble). The set was fantastic. As were the ideas employed to bring in extra locations. The FX are … to die for (you’ll see what I mean if you go).
Darius Campbell was mature and thoughtful as Sergeant Milt Warden. Robert Lonsdale, as Robert E Pruett, did a marvellous job of showing us a man tortured by demons largely of his own conjuring. There was brief, deliciously anticipated and very classy nudity by Rebecca Thornhill as Karen Holmes.
However, for me, good as the others were, Ryan Sampson of ‘Plebs’ and ‘Fresh Meat’ stole the show. And also started it. He has the look of a young Robert Downey Jnr. in this show, rather than the pudding basin wig and dumbface he uses to excellent effect in Plebs.
Go. Enjoy.
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Published by Judi Moore
Hi there,
I hope you find something to interest you here.
In December 2017 I published my fourth book – ‘Wonders will never cease’. It’s a satirical campus novel set in the fictional Ariel University in 1985. If you enjoyed Tom Sharpe’s Porterhouse novels, Willy Russell’s ‘Educating Rita’, David Lodge’s campus novels or Malcolm Bradbury’s ‘The History Man’ back in the day, you may enjoy revisiting the ivory towers of 1980s’ academe thirty years on. See what you think.
“It is December, 1985. The year is winding gently towards its close until Fergus Girvan, a Classicist at Ariel University, finds his research has been stolen by the man who is also seeking to steal his daughter. But which man is, actually, the more unscrupulous of the two? And is there hope for either of them?”
In the autumn of 2015 I published a volume of short fiction: 'Ice Cold Passion and other stories'. I am also the author of novella 'Little Mouse', a shortish piece of historical fiction which I published in 2014 and, a sequel to it, 'Is death really necessary?', my eco thriller set in the near future and which, confusingly, I published in 2009.
All the books are available from all good online bookshops and FeedARead on paper, and as e-books on Kindle.
On a semi-regular basis, and about a month after the event, I post here reviews which I do for Big Al & Pals, the premier reviewer of indie books, based in the States. My interests tend to thrillers, SF, magic realism and other quirky stuff.
On this blog are also posted the reviews I did for Leighton Buzzard Music Club over some five years up to the end of 2015. LBMC present annual seasons of eight monthly chamber music concerts at the Library Theatre in Leighton Buzzard, Bucks. They select young musicians just beginning to make their name - and the concerts are usually magnificent. I was very proud to be associated with them.
I review other music, books, theatre and exhibitions which I've particularly enjoyed.
BTW - it says the link to Facebook is broken. I dispute that. Click it and see, why not?
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Judi Moore 
It sounds like a great show and Monday night theatre doesn’t put me off at all. Great review!
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