Morning:
11°c
London faces a wave of bus and Tube strikes that could cause chaos for millions of passengers as unions walkout over pay and conditions
More...
An awesome and ridiculous film that leaves you thrilled beyond the point of your natural endurance
2012
Theatre
The show has suddenly become quite wonderful, and the galvanising factor is the terrific stage debut of Melanie C
Blood Brothers
Music
The British pop music industry may be eating itself but if Muse are the pick of what it can offer the world in 2010 then British music is in rude health indeed
Muse
I was smitten by both Gilberts enormous luxuriant moustache and the intelligence and nuance of this highly entertaining play
I totally recommend Babbo to anyone who is looking for really good and traditional Italian food
Always been a fan but never seen them live. I was ecstatic to be part of this epic event. WOW!
London,
Fiona Mountford's rating
Reader rating
Dir: Matthew White, Larry Blank (orchestrator).
Cast: Chris Ellis-Stanton, Kaisa Hammarlund, Katherine Kingsley, Eliza Lumley, Mark McGee, Charles Shirvell
Description: Cole Porter musical mystery in which a young woman tries to discover who murdered her step-father. Directed by Matthew White.
Trains: Tube/BR: Angel/Highbury & Islington 
Phone: 0870890 0149
Website: www.kingsheadtheatre.org
Email: info@kingsheadtheatre.org
Extra info: Party Hire
Spirit of the forties: Suzanne (Katherine Kingsley), Jay (Chris Ellis-Stanton) and Leah (Bethany Lloyd-Perks)
Fans of idiosyncratic London theatre will thrill at the news: the King’s Head is back. This much-loved Islington pub venue has had some cosmetic sprucing up — although the new bench seats will still leave you needing an osteopath — but the real renaissance is in the programming. From now on, homegrown productions will receive decent-length runs and confidence is such that scheduling currently runs into 2009. Even the National hasn’t declared itself that far ahead.
The Black and White Ball is an accomplished start to this season. Billed as a “musical mystery”, it elegantly blends a slightly random selection of Cole Porter songs with a freshly-written 1940s society whodunit and has more than enough style to hold things together when the substance starts to flake. A cast of six fine musical theatre performers, plus a golden-haired moppet of a young girl, are an enormous help.
The plot basics are wheeled out in some clumsy initial exposition, which owes more than a passing debt to Sondheim’s Follies. Leah, a writer, returns to the New York ballroom, now awaiting demolition, where the fabulously elegant titular ball was held in 1949, at which toast-of-the-town author Jay St John was murdered. Leah, a child at the time and, it transpires, St John’s step-daughter, is determined to crack the crime once and for all.
Eleven-year-old Leah might have been flabbergasted at the murderer’s identity but we’re certainly not, so the suspense levels aren’t exactly of Agatha Christie proportions. It’s also a struggle to believe that Jay (Chris Ellis-Stanton) is as tortured a soul as writer Warner Brown would have us believe. Nonetheless, Matthew White’s production is so darn elegant that we soon stop quibbling and start smiling.
There’s a smashing central turn, redolent of classy 1940s Hollywood, from Katherine Kingsley as Jay’s ambitious publisher who, with head ruling heart, later becomes his wife. Liza Pulman and Charles Shirvell provide some sassy between-scenes singing and they are joined by Mark McGee’s mysterious drag artist for a priceless, skirt-hoisting Can-Can (“You can can-can too”). An impressively exuberant relaunch.
Until 4 May (020 7226 1916, www.kingsheadtheatre.org)
Details are correct at the time of publication - please check with venue before booking.
