Reviews

As we wait for Glenn Shea to come on stage, we range over Meg White’s resonant, evocative design.  There is a bare, dead tree, stark against what would be the sky.  There are outcrops of rock, some spread with skins – possum or kangaroo.  One outcrop holds a small pool of water – a sink for travellers.  Another a circular dish of whitefellas’ flour.  Upstage, a sort of battered, derelict structure of aluminium frame, cyclone wire mesh and missing panels. 

The Marvelous Wondrettes is a jukebox musical which premiered for Milwaukee Repertory Theatre in 1999. Devised for a cast of four in an intimate setting, the show uses songs from the 50s and 60s in two acts. Act One takes place at the 1958 High School prom and Act Two at the reunion ten years later. The small stage at the Italian Club in Prospect was the right choice of venue.

If you think you know the story of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, then think again. This jukebox musical does more than highlight the group’s back catalogue of hits. It delves into the origins of the band, relationships, family, personal tragedy, and the hoops they had to jump through to make it in the music industry. It is a human story about four talented lads from Jersey, who left petty crime behind to land on the world stage – and boy did the world listen!

Welsh playwright Gary Owen sets his compelling version of Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard in his homeland, in a crumbling family home and orchard looking out over the Atlantic.  It’s 1982 and back in London Margaret Thatcher’s neo-liberal government is riding high on the nationalistic fervour of snatching back the Falklands.