First theatre of 2025

I thought '2024' when I was writing the title, but my fingers got it right...

Road Trip Show

This is effectively Stephen Sondheim's last musical (there's another one, but it was never really finished). It had a very troubled gestation - there were three previous versions, different enough to have had different titles, before this version was settled on in 2008 - and partly because of that, there's not been a West End (or Broadway) production.

I liked it. It's certainly much better than his previous one, Passion, which made the mistake of arriving in London at the same time as excellent Donmar Warehouse production of the much better Company and I would rather see it again than A Little Night Music.

It has humour, a gay lead character, and intelligence. The lyrics are great, but unlike ALNM there is no great tune and none of the songs would really work as standalone pieces (not that that has stopped people including one or two in tributes).

It's on at Upstairs at the Gatehouse in Highgate for a couple more weeks.

Hold Onto Your Butts

It's not quite a shot-for-shot version of Jurassic Park as performed by two actors doing physical comedy, and a foley artist, but it's not far off.

It's been about twenty years since I saw the film, but I still recognised it all. If you haven't seen it (or can't remember much) I suggest doing so before going.. and I do recommend going.

It was an Edinburgh Fringe show and suspect there it didn't have the trailers at the start that do part of padding it out to 75 minutes. It's on at the Arcola before going on tour.

I saw it for £4 via Central Tickets - they have it until Wednesday Thursday at the moment.