Howard Loxton

3 weeks ago | britishtheatreguide.info | Howard Loxton

There is a link between The Habits, nearing the end of its run in Hampstead’s studio Downstairs, which follows a Dungeons and Dragons game, and this new play in the main house which features vampires. In Apex Predator, IT ace Joe (Bryan Dick), who is involved in a hush-hush police investigation after bodies have been discovered drained of blood and some with their heads missing, declares the suspects are not real vampires but role-playing, like D and D gamers.

3 weeks ago | britishtheatreguide.info | Howard Loxton

This new musical by Emmy and Oscar nominee and composer of Disney’s Mulan, Matthew Wilder, and playwright Tim Luscombe is titled Stiletto, and in it, a harp-pointed dagger deals a lethal blow, but it centres on castrato singer Marco Borroni. As a child, he was bought from his parents by Faustino Conti, who recognised a pure voice with potential.

1 month ago | britishtheatreguide.info | Howard Loxton

It is the 1660s, and theatre re-emerges in London. But where are the playhouses? Since being closed down by Parliament in 1642, they have been pulled down or repurposed. And where are the actors? The monarchy has been restored, and Charles II has brought with him ideas he picked up in France, and under his patronage, actresses have been introduced in the re-established British theatre. April De Angelis’s play gives us brief glimpses into the lives of five of them.

1 month ago | britishtheatreguide.info | Howard Loxton

There have been hundreds of adaptations of Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel, most of them hoping to have you screaming. This one, which premièred Off-Broadway in 2023, does so too, though with laughter not horror. It starts, like the book, with an epistolary format, but though it follows the broad outlines of the plot, it seems viewed through a queer lens as it reinvents relationships and omits huge chunks of the story.

1 month ago | britishtheatreguide.info | Howard Loxton

In the WarBoar Boardgames Café in Bromley, a group of friends meet every Thursday to play Dungeons and Dragons. They are sixteen-year-old Jess (still at school), who is leading the game as the Dungeon Master, and her late brother Matt’s friends, both now 21, who went to the same school: trainee solicitor Maryn, playing the game as a wizard, and out-of-work Milo, whose role is warrior princess Wen, last daughter of the Blood-Clan of Dark Moon.