Arts REVIEW: Expenses Only – The Musical @Phil Starr Pavilion In the good old days when I did stage plays and musicals we used to reckon that you needed one hour of rehearsal for every minute of actual playing time on stage when the show played. So it was incredible to learn that the talented singing line-up in this new show by Andrew Stark had just four days By Brian Butler • 2 min read
Arts REVIEW: Deathtrap by Ira Levin @Theatre Royal Broadway playwright Sidney Bruhl has had 11 years and 4 flops in a row and is getting desperate for another hit. So he thinks his dreams have come to true when aspiring first-time writer Clifford Anderson sends him what Sidney considers a sure-fire Broadway smash of a play called Deathtrap. By Brian Butler • 2 min read
Arts BRIGHTON FRINGE REVIEW: MacBlair@The Warren Studio 3 It’s 1994- the young ambitious Tony Blair and the irascible Gordon Brown meet three journalists – ‘hacks’ in a stairwell in Parliament. The “weird journalists” predict TB will be Leader of the Labour Party, Prime Minister and King of the World. By Brian Butler • 2 min read
Arts REVIEW: Ruffian on the stair@The Lantern @ ACT Pretty much Joe Orton’s first play – written in 1964 – this 3-hander deals comically and darkly with love, sex for sale , Catholicism, homosexuality, lies, power and loneliness. By Brian Butler • 1 min read
