France has come to London in this frivolous and funny musical. We are transported back to the 1890s in Paris, when the ladies of Moulin Rouge scandalised the city. The dresses are bigger, the busts are bustier and the characters are larger than life. A forbidden love blossoms between Christian Bontoux, the gentlemen (Damjan Mrackovich) and Jane Avril the Can-Can dancer, (Kathy Peacock), and in true Romeo and Juliet fashion they are torn apart by …

Tony Hancock made the first series of Hancock’s Half Hour for BBC radio in 1954, the scripts were written by two new writers still in their twenties; Ray Galton and Alan Simpson. Galton and Simpson went on to be one of the most successful comedy writing partners ever, most notably as the writers of Steptoe and Son. Later the television version of Hancock’s Half Hour would attract audiences of 20 million. Hancock’s character was a …

Bizet’s opera Carmen holds a special place in my heart.  Not only was it the first opera I saw, but Matthew Bourne’s danced version – The Car Man – was the first time I really understood how a story could be told so well only by movement. So, when I heard that the King’s Head were presenting a new version of the story, I leapt at the chance to go. This new English version, with …

Rose Lewenstein’s Cougar is an engaging philosophical play about the ennui of human existence and the repetitive exercise of joyless living. It reveals itself through the actions of its two characters, Leila (Charlotte Randle) an investment strategist with a huckster’s sales pitch – that of reducing global carbon emissions while maximising corporate profits – and John (Mike Noble), recently fired from his job as a hotel worker, who accompanies Leila on a world-wind tour of …

Joe Orton’s The Ruffian On The Stair was originally a radio play first broadcast on the BBC Home Service in August 1964 and based on a novel The Boy Hairdresser which was written by Orton and his partner (and his murderer), Kenneth Halliwell. The title is taken from a poem by William Ernest Henley: “Madam Life’s a piece in bloom, death goes dogging everywhere. She’s the tenant of the room, he’s the ruffian on the …