REVIEW: The Great British Bake Off Musical at the Noel Coward Theatre

The Great British Bake Off - the hit TV show that’s taken audiences all over the world by storm. Also, the musical nobody asked for, and maybe there’s good reason. 

If you’ve seen the TV show you’ll be very familiar with the basis of this musical. Eight bakers, two presenters and two judges. Through the musical, we lightly explore these eight aspiring bakers guided by our two presenters with the occasional appearance of our two very well-loved presenters. Other than that, there’s not much basis for this show. 

With a very loose storyline that appears clunky and drawn out, we never actually reach below the surface of each baker. And as for the judges and presenters, the material lacks and we struggle to find the difference between parody and authenticity. 

REVIEW: The Lieutenant of Inishmore at the Noel Coward Theatre

Martin McDonagh is a very confident and clever writer whose most recent success was the film Three billboards outside Ebbing Missouri but he must also have felt incredibly brave when he wrote The Lieutenant of Inishmore in 1994 (although it was not staged until 2001) as it is a very dark satire about the IRA and their splinter group the INLA. He spares no punches in portraying them as fecking idiots whose answer to everything is torture and murder. The plot is simple Mad Padraic, a terrorist so dangerous that he is thrown out of the IRA, is disturbed to hear that his beloved cat Wee Thomas is ill that he interrupts his torturing of a local drug dealer to rush to his home on the island of Inishmore to be with him. It sets up an elongated black comedy sketch worthy of Monty Python or Spike Milligan.

The setting designed by Christopher Oram, as always with Michael Grandage's artful productions is impressive and detailed . The main scenes take place in his father's cottage on the island , which apart from the plain blue cyc outside the front door and windows, looks incredibly solid and shows Padraic's humble rural background. The rest of the scenes are played in front of a splendid 3D map of the island of Inishmore which is also used to cover scene changes in the cottage.

REVIEW: Labour of Love at the Noel Coward Theatre

James Graham is fast becoming the leading British modern author with his sharp witted comedies based on well researched insight into the events of recent decades. Our House brilliantly told the story of the hung parliaments in the seventies and Ink, now playing just along the road from Labour of Love explores Rupert Murdoch's acquisition of the Sun at beginning of seventies . Now Michael Grandage Company and Headlong bring his latest play to open in the West End, a revealing comedy about the ups and downs of the Labour Party.

This is a play of two halves. In the first half we travel back in time to 1990 and David Lyons election as constituency MP for Ashfield in the midlands through the events that shaped his career and relationship with the local constituency party who select him. In the second half we travel forward in time over the same events revealing the real truths behind the story . The result is a palindrome of events that reads differently depending on the direction of travel.