Theatre

It’s nearly that time of year again – panto season is just around the corner and South London proudly plays host to some corkers this year, writes Paloma Lacy.

Roald Dahl’s Witches delivers what every child adores. Something just frightening enough to tantalise and thrill, without putting them off a good night’s sleep.

A new British musical from writers Not every hit requires a big budget or a starry cast. Jim Barne and Kit Buchan has opened at the Kiln Theatre and it is quite fabulous.

The Royal Court Theatre’s new production of Mates in Chelsea, by Rory Mullarkey, starts well enough. We are introduced to Viscount Theodore “Tuggy” Bungay in his Chelsea pad, and his madcap life of hangovers and love trysts, and….well little else.

‘Backstairs Billy,’ as he became known, was a heavy pourer and a serial trickster. When a dreary party for veterans’ widows was flagging he spiced the teapot with a bottle of whisky. It turned into a rave.

There are 50 paintings, executed over an eighteen month period during which the artist Phoebe Dickinson travelled around Britain and captured many of the nation’s most iconic houses and gardens in a fresh, intimate light.

In times of unrest, it is common for our storytellers to focus on the major players, telling stories of astonishing bravery, of unspeakable atrocity, of power politicians and international strategists.

The smash hit show Only Fools and Horses The Musical is hitting the road in 2024 and 2025 for a major tour of the UK.

Maggie O’Farrell’s best-selling book Hamnet sought to ‘correct’ this shortfall, and to explore the way his great play Hamlet was a sorrowful hymn to his recently lost child, Hamnet.

Founded over 30 years ago and now based at the Albany Theatre in Deptford, Kali Theatre offers unique opportunities in new theatre writing for women of South Asian descent.

As the Diva lies on her death bed in Paris, she ponders her own mortality and how heroines approached death in seven of her greatest roles. This is the vehicle for seven contemporary divas to perform seven great areas, or rather six and one makeweight.

As Lord Somerset, Connor Finch successfully brings out the tragedy for contemporary gays, though only in passing is the scandal’s central role in gay history considered.

Alexander Zeldin’s new play at the Southbank’s Lyttleton theatre chronicles his mother’s life and is inspired by conversations with her and her friends. I just hope a lot of it is made up.

I write this at the end of the first day of rehearsal for Snow White, this year’s all-singing, all-dancing pantomime at Greenwich Theatre.

The Churchill Theatre unveiled their star-studded line-up for this year’s family pantomime, Cinderella, at the Old Palace in Bromley on Wednesday 18th October.

The story of a young writer who stumbles into the make-believe world of a faded Hollywood superstar, Norma Desmond, is first class source material.

The Empress has at its heart an interesting concept. Three different stories about the interaction between three different Indian people as they encounter their British rulers.