John Shand Posts

October 23, 2026 / Theatre Reviews

Hayes Theatre, October 15 6/10 It’s official: you can now make a musical from anything, even a subject more suited to a trashy teen flick. And if you’re as talented a first-time director as Chiara Assetta, you can daub enough lipstick and mascara on it to disguise its many defects.…

October 19, 2026 / Theatre Reviews

Reginald Theatre, October 14 9/10 Theatre can be trick, truth, ritual or mirror. Cruise is all of those and more. Penned by British playwright Jack Holden in 2021, it’s a love letter to London’s energised gay scene of the 1980s, to those who died of AIDS and to the “veterans”…

October 17, 2026 / Features

The first time Dave Holland played with Miles Davis, he had no rehearsal, no set-list, no sheet music and no prior discussion. The young British bassist, replacing Ron Carter in Miles’ famed 1960s quintet, watched the trumpeter approach the microphone, and start playing a song at breakneck speed that Holland…