Troubadour Wembley Park Theatre

Chaka Khan has lived one hell of a life. A teenage Black Panther turned soul star, she worked with everyone from Whitney Houston to Joni Mitchell, shot at her second husband with a rifle, and battled alcohol and drug addiction throughout her life. Khan was born to spawn her own jukebox musical. She’s got the story, and she’s certainly got the hits. Unfortunately, I’m Every Woman, playing at the Troubadour Wembley Park Theatre after a limited run at the Hackney Empire, is not a worthy reflection of that life or those hits. It is a messy, overly long piece of theatre, its script a bizarre mix of stilted scenes and strange song choices that squanders lead Alexandra Burke’s talent and does little to convince us of Chaka’s very real star power. This chaotic middle is bookended by a far more sombre scene: a group therapy session between Chaka and her family, as they reckon with addiction and the distance it’s placed between the singer and her daughter Milini (Charlotte St Croix). We then flash back to Chaka’s childhood, the story barrelling at speed past her father’s heroin addiction, experiences of abuse, first loves. Everything in I’m Every Woman goes fast, fast, fast. The hits are cut short to squeeze in more songs, the scenes a jumbled mess of non-sequitors and exposition (‘Speaking of pain, how’s the new medication for your knee?’ follows one particularly emotional moment), designed to propel the story forward, always forward. The plot and timeline quickly become hard to...

This review is from the 2018 Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre run for Dinosaur World Live.  The last time the beasts of the Mesozoic era descended upon Regent’s Park it was for Dinosaur Zoo, a puppet-based dino romp that was a lot of fun, albeit somewhat defined by its obstinate refusal to feature dinosaurs that weren’t from Australia (the show was in fact Australian, but dinosaur nationalism is a pretty weird concept). Anyway, Dinosaur World Live is a not dissimilar idea, except that the British show, written and directed by Derek Bond, isn’t afraid to give the audience what it wants – that is, a T-rex. In fact, there are two T-rexes, an adult and a baby, plus a brace of Triceratops and some semi-obscure additional dinos (Giraffatitan, Segnosaurus, Microraptor) that parents may or may not have heard of depending upon the extent of their children’s dino-love. There’s a framing plot, which goes on a bit and may sail over the heads of smaller audience members, wherein perky Miranda (Elizabeth Mary Williams, with the squeaky-clean pep of a Butlin’s Redcoat) recounts how her family discovered a mysterious island full of living dinosaurs, which they are now exhibiting across the breadth of the UK in a larksome roadshow. It’s a set-up to introduce us to a succession of lovably unruly puppet dinosaurs, beautifully designed by Max Humphries and manipulated by a versatile team of puppeteers overseen by Laura Cubitt. There’s a spot of audience interaction – feeding, grooming – and the...