Published: May 16th, 2013 * * * * Puts the spectre in spectacular
 Photo credit: Ghost the Musical on tour Edinburgh Playhouse
Tue 14 May – Sat 1 June 2013
Review by Martin Gray
Sam Wheat has it all – a great job, a great home and most of all, a great woman. Then he loses it all, killed in an apparently random street mugging. He doesn’t move on to the next world, though, because he has unfinished business – protecting love Molly from the men responsible for his death. Unable to communicate with her, psychic Oda Mae Brown is his only hope …
A massive screen hit in 1990, Ghost had a generation in tears, as Demi Moore’s heart broke over the loss of Patrick Swayze, and Whoopi Goldberg tried to help. Adding song and dance is a risky proposition: it worked brilliantly as a straightforward … Continue reading Review – Ghost: The Musical
Published: April 30th, 2013 * * * High notes hit
 Thriller – London cast production shot. Photo credit Irina Chira Edinburgh Playhouse
Mon 29 April – Sat 4 May 2013
Review by Thom Dibdin
Great songs and a killer dance troupe, with some punchy routines to get their limbs around, ensure that this tribute to the music of Michael Jackson has a bunch of great high notes to hit.
Those looking for a musical biography of the life and times of the King of Pop aren’t in for a great night. This covers the expected musical bases, from the Motown number ones of the Jackson Five to 70s Disco and Jackson’s three top selling solo albums, but the personal details are missing.
Neither is it a look-alike version of a Michael Jackson gig – at least not until the finale when lead dancer Michael Duke finally gets to blend his moves with his vocal prowess. … Continue reading Review – Thriller Live
Published: March 12th, 2013 * * * Warp Factor 40
 Rocky Horror Show 2013 tour. Oliver Thornton as Frank’n'Furter with cast. Production photography: Manuel Harlan Edinburgh Playhouse
Mon 11 – Sat 16 March 2013
Review by Martin Gray
Celebrating 40 years of sweet transvestites from transsexual Transylvania, the Rocky Horror Show rolls back into town.
And along with it, dozens of fanboys and girls dressed up as the characters – here a Frank-N-Furter, there a Columbia, everywhere a Riff-Raff. But nary a Brad nor a Janet to be seen.
No-one wants to be the square kids, it seems. The ones who get caught up in night of naughtiness after breaking down on a dark road and spotting a castle with signs of life. Frank and his pervy pals have much more appeal for the students who form the show’s most cultish of cult … Continue reading Review – Rocky Horror Show
Published: March 5th, 2013 * * * * Gloriously camp
 Jason Donovan with the London cast of the 2009 production. Photo ©Tristram Kenton Edinburgh Playhouse
Mon 4 – Sat 9 March 2013
Review by Thom Dibdin
Priscilla first came to Edinburgh in 1994 when the original film premiered at the EIFF, causing all manner of riotous cross-dressing behaviour at that year’s opening party, when the golden invites requested “black-tie or drag”.
Almost 19 years on and the Queen of the Australian Desert is back and she’s a musical. With, it seems, even bigger dresses, louder make-up and yet more pumping music to lip-synch to.
It’s also got Jason Donovan as Tick, the Sydney drag queen with a secret wife and child back home in Alice Springs. When the wife calls in a favour he … Continue reading Review – Priscilla Queen of the Desert the musical
Published: February 14th, 2013
 Edinburgh Playhouse
Guest review by Martin Gray
7.30pm. Not a sound from the audience as the curtain rises on the theatrical juggernaut that is Cats. It’s more than 30 years since Andrew Lloyd Webber put music to TS Eliot’s Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats, and while there’s a definite Eighties vibe to the show, Cats hasn’t atrophied, it’s achieved classic status, enchanting audiences old and new and this touring production feels as fresh as a playful kitten.
I’ve rarely seen a house with such a wide, evenly distributed span of ages, from wise old Toms to young cats, all ready for the Jellicle clan to share their stories in music and dance. … Continue reading Review – Cats
Published: November 27th, 2012
 Big pink lusciousness abounds in the final flourish of Sexist Egotistical Lying Hypocritical Bigot. Photo: Simon Annand Edinburgh Playhouse
Review by Thom Dibdin
Crisply packaged and bouncing with ambition, Dolly Parton’s 9 to 5 – the Musical has the odds stacked in its favour as it strides purposefully into the Playhouse this week.
Here are a bundle of great songs, a book which zings from workplace infighting, to smoking pot, to pouring rat poison in the boss’s coffee without pause for breath – and a slew of fine performances that peak with Bonnie Langford hitting her high-note while hanging upside down.
This is the story of a group of women who rise up against their chauvinist pig of a boss – as we used to call them in the Seventies. And in the Seventies – well, 1979 – is emphatically where this feel-good piece of fun is set.
Just look at the flick on that big hair, ogle the check on those trousers and that jacket, marvel at the width of those lapels and swoon over those … Continue reading Review – 9 to 5 The Musical
Published: July 27th, 2012
Edinburgh Playhouse
Review by Thom Dibdin
 The chorus in rehearsal for Footloose. While most of the world was glued to the box last night for the multimillion pound opening spectacle of the Olympics, a packed Edinburgh Playhouse witnessed a sparkling, thrilling and, ultimately enthralling opening night of Footloose.
The 123 kids of the seventh Edinburgh Playhouse Stage Experience might not have smoothed off every single rough edge in their two week rehearsal period, but they certainly know how to tell a story in music and dance.
Footloose is the musical version of the 1984 movie. It tells the story of teenage Ren, played by 17 year old Ronan Burns, who is forced to quit the lights and dance clubs of Chicago when his dad walks out.
He and his mum (Seonaid Stevenson) wind up in the deadbeat backwater town of Beaumont. And just to make this hick-town twice as dull, it turns out that the local council has … Continue reading Review – Footloose
Published: April 27th, 2012 * * * *
 Tupele Dorgu, Stefan Booth, Ali Bastian and Bernie Nolan in Chicago Edinburgh Playhouse
Review by Thom Dibdin
The cynical tale of murder, greed, corruption, exploitation, adultery and treachery – “all those things we hold near and dear to our hearts” as Go-to-hell-Kitty so memorably foretells – struts back into town looking as good as it ever did.
All the familiar elements are there to portray the sleazy underworld of the roaring twenties in Chicago. The hot, skin-tight lingerie outfits, the even-hotter ensemble of singers and dancers to wear them, and a truly sizzling jazz-infused on-stage band are all present and absolutely correct.
Not to forget the required complement of small-screen celebrities to add a cynical note of postmodernism to a tale which makes much of the celebrity culture of the courthouse, where the more gruesome your murder – and the less likely your innocence – the more likely you are to get off.
In place are Ali Bastian strutting out Strictly style as murderess Roxie Hart; Tupele Dorgu of Corrie fame as her rival the double-murderess Velma Kelly; and … Continue reading Review – Chicago
Published: April 4th, 2012 * * * *
 Alex Ferns (Billis) and Samantha Womack (Nellie) with the Nurses in Honey Bun. Photo credit: Simon Annand Edinburgh Playhouse
Review by Thom Dibdin
The enchantment is in plentiful supply over an evening spent in the company of this touring revival of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s South Pacific, at the Edinburgh Playhouse until 14 April.
Although it is not quite the Some Enchanted Evening sung about by Matthew Cammelle’s sophisticated French planter Emile de Becque in the perfectly measured opening scene – as he and Samantha Womack’s light-voiced Nellie Forbush recall their first romantic encounter just two weeks earlier.
It is an altogether darker kind of enchantment, and a more intriguing one, which pervades the whole piece. Or at least the first half, thanks to Loretta Ables Sayre’s interpretation of Bloody Mary, the native Islander who makes a living selling trinkets – of all kinds – to visitors. … Continue reading Review – South Pacific
Published: February 8th, 2012 * * * *
 Chris Thatcher and Katherine Moraz as the Bad Idea Bears Edinburgh Playhouse
Review by Thom Dibdin
Rude, crude and breaking all sorts of politically correct taboos, Avenue Q stomps out into the vast Playhouse space as it it had been born to play there.
It is hilarious stuff which easily justifies its gimmick – that only three of the characters are played by people. The rest are puppets, manipulated by a surprisingly small number of onstage singing puppeteers.
Any fears that this touring production would not be able to scale up to the 3000 seats of the Playhouse are completely unjustified. The puppets are large enough to be visible right to the back, although the detail of their creation isn’t, while the singing voices of the cast are easily powerful enough to fill the hall.
Despite the puppets and X-rated scenes, Avenue Q turns out to be … Continue reading Review – Avenue Q
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