2 weeks ago
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The Lion King at the Hollywood Bowl
Talk about the circle of life: past stars of the leonine juggernaut’s stage and screen versions reunite in this 30th anniversary concert in Los Angeles. Singer-composer Lebo M, Jeremy Irons and Nathan Lane are among a cast that also includes Jennifer Hudson, who delivers the opening number surrounded by those spectacular puppets. On Disney+.
Churchill in Moscow
What happened in the summer of 1942 when Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin held a secret meeting at the Kremlin? Howard Brenton gives us an account of the high-stakes encounter with “spikily poetic dialogue and laugh-aloud gags”. Available 11-14 March.
Fritz
The Pina Bausch Foundation has an extraordinarily comprehensive archive to take dance-lovers deep down the rabbit hole. There are videos of international successes Palermo Palermo and Café Müller but also of the German trailblazer’s first piece with Tanztheater Wuppertal, Fritz, which premiered in 1974.
The Other Place
Before London’s current double whammy of Sophocles (an underrated Oedipus at the Old Vic and an irksome Elektra at the Duke of York’s), Alexander Zeldin directed this modern version of Antigone. Emma D’Arcy and Alison Oliver play the sisters and there is music by Yannis Philippakis from Foals. On National Theatre at Home from 20 March.
Romantics Anonymous
Emma Rice’s bittersweet musical about love among chocolatiers, staged in 2017 as her departing show from Shakespeare’s Globe, finally gets a cast recording. Captured in 2020 at Bristol Old Vic, with Marc Antolin and Carly Bawden in the lead roles, it’s orchestrated by the great Simon Hale.
Wedding Band
Sam White directs a lucid and engrossing revival of Alice Childress’s play about the secret love between a Black seamstress and a white baker during the 1918 flu epidemic in South Carolina. Immaculately staged at Canada’s Stratford festival in 2023, it’s now available through a subscription to Stratfest@Home.
Why Am I So Single?
Toby Marlow and Lucy Moss’s all-conquering Six is one of the most streamed musical theatre albums of all time. The duo’s follow-up, about good mates and bad dates, closed early at the Garrick but is not short of earworms. A recording will be released on 14 March – with a bonus appearance from Patti LuPone on an extended version of Men R Trash.
Bovary
Christian Spuck choreographed this “dance play” based on Gustave Flaubert’s novel for his debut production as artistic director at the Staatsballett Berlin in 2023. Weronika Frodyma stars as the heroine, searching like a sailor for hope on the horizon. On Marquee TV.
