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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
Trains: Tube: Baker Street, Regents Park 
Phone: 0844826 4242
Website: www.openairtheatre.org
Extra info: Pub, Food
Light Relief: Toby Belch (Tim Woodward), Malvolio (Richard O'Callaghan) and Feste (Clive Rowe)
The undisputed charm of London's loveliest spot for summer theatre - and best alfresco Pimms bar - can only go so far. For too long in this, Shakespeare's most sophisticated comedy, it looks as though the fairy lights in Regent's Park are on but no one's home. The loose Jazz Age setting is pretty but jokes are thrown recklessly away and depths remain resolutely unexplored. That interval drink, it seems, will never arrive.
But gradually, a transformation begins, creeping over the actors and the action in this narrative of missing siblings and mistaken identities, until Act Five becomes a veritable masterclass in how to handle Shakespearean denouements. This act, in which devices are explained and desires fulfilled, is notoriously tricky to bring off without the entire cast standing statically around in an expository semi-circle. Yet director Edward Dick keeps the surprises fresh while still retaining that edge of unease left by the wronged steward Malvolio's threat of revenge.
Feste's melancholy closing song about daily rain is cleverly turned into a dance at the wedding ball of the two couples, with candles flick-ering atmospherically in niches in the back wall.
That backdrop, of a decayed Renaissance palazzo façade, might be fine for candles but it's no use for the crucial first scene, in which the shipwrecked Viola decides to disguise herself as a man until she can find her beloved twin brother. The import of her transformation is thus lost on us, a fact with which Natalie Dew's Viola struggles constantly.
Janie Dee's nicely composed Olivia skips around like Twinkle-toes in a ballgown once she's discarded her mourning weeds but the evening's real joy lies with "the lighter people". Clive Rowe's Feste is a grandstanding, sweet-voiced delight, whose suitcase of jester's tricks comes complete with a cocktail cabinet. Together with Belch (Tim Woodward, too shrewish) and lovable silly ass Aguecheek (Clive Hayward), Rowe makes a whole lot of merry before Richard O'Callaghan's perfectly peevish Malvolio arrives to put a stop to all such cakes and ale-related frivolities.
• In rep until July 30. Information: 0844 826 4242, www.openairtheatre.org.
Details are correct at the time of publication - please check with venue before booking.
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