Theatre

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Rags the Musical ★★★★

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Rags the Musical ★★★★

With book by Fiddler librettist Joseph Stein (sympathetically revised by David Thompson), it’s clear that Rags might represent the future of Anatevka’s plucky emigrants. Designer Gregor Donnelly loads piles of battered suitcases around the action as another boatload of…

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The Ballad of the Cosmo Café ★★★★

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The Ballad of the Cosmo Café ★★★★

Stepping inside Director/Scenographer Pamela Howard’s bustling evocation of the much-loved meeting place that was the Cosmo Café, notably for Jewish refugees from Nazi Europe, is to be instantly swept up in its vibrant life. Even before the show begins, Santiago del Fosco’s head waiter…

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The Cosmo comes to life again

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The Cosmo comes to life again

“I loved The Cosmo, which I got to know in the mid-50s. This was the time when not much English could be heard in Finchley Road, and the bus conductor would call out “Jerusalem” or ‘Vienna”! The German accent in the streets was predominantly Austrian, as was the conversation in…

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The Ice Cream Boys ★★★★

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The Ice Cream Boys ★★★★

When two ruthless power players clash, things are seldom as black and white as they seem. Noted Jewish playwright Gail Louw brings together – South Africa’s ex-president Jacob Zuma and his one-time fellow freedom fighter Ronnie Kasrils – confining them in a hospital ward with…

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The Silver Lake (Der Silbersee) ★★★★

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The Silver Lake (Der Silbersee) ★★★★

The Silver Lake was the last collaboration between playwright Georg Kaiser and composer/librettist Kurt Weill, before they fled Germany in 1933. The Nazis banned this ‘story for Winter’, as its creators subtitled it, and it’s easy to see why in James Conway’s timely production. Subversive…