Theatre in review: South Pacific, Anna X and ‘country-comedy’ opera L’amico Fritz
Just to see ‘a large cast dancing and singing its lungs out feels like witnessing an act of rebirth’

“My, how I’ve missed the gladdening sight and pulse-quickening sound of a major American musical done to perfection,” said Dominic Cavendish in The Daily Telegraph.
Daniel Evans’s “enchanting” and “seductive” staging of South Pacific at Chichester Festival Theatre is a flat-out triumph. Leads Julian Ovenden and Gina Beck are both first-rate. The racial aspects of the plot are handled very sensitively, and without sacrificing wit and buoyancy. And just to see “a large cast dancing and singing its lungs out feels like witnessing an act of rebirth”.
I’ve never before been seduced by South Pacific, with its “sumptuous score” and “ghastly action”, said Susannah Clapp in The Observer. But this “glorious” version made me think, for the first time, that Rodgers and Hammerstein’s musical “really may, as has always been claimed, not be besmirched by racism and misogyny but be tackling them”. Truly an enchanted evening (until 5 September).
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Anna X, at the Harold Pinter Theatre in London’s West End, is “frenetic, fun and ultra-cool” – and dazzling in its “ambition, originality and execution”, said Arifa Akbar in The Guardian.
Joseph Charlton’s “slick and intelligent” two-hander, about a con artist who rips off a tech entrepreneur, is loosely based on the story of the “fake heiress” Anna Sorokin. Emma Corrin (“excellent” as Princess Diana in The Crown) and Nabhaan Rizwan are both “superb”: she emanating “steely cynicism”; he “loveably gullible” – but it’s the set and video designs that blow the mind.
Anna X deploys “such sophisticated – and stupendous – video projection techniques that it feels like a reconceived theatrical form” – a mash-up of film, pop video and “happening”. Let’s hope that Charlton (a successful TV writer) continues to write for the theatre, said Paul Taylor in The Independent. He’s a major talent (until 4 August).
Pietro Mascagni’s charming “country-comedy” opera L’amico Fritz is a “musical flummery” as “toothsome” as its cherry-orchard setting – all “sharp-sweet dissonance, heavy with some really sumptuous duets and a stirring intermezzo”, said Alexandra Coghlan in The Daily Telegraph. Verdi called it “the worst libretto I’ve ever seen”, but “since when has a lack of real conflict been a barrier to success for a romantic comedy?”
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
The piece is a favourite at Opera Holland Park, where Julia Burbach’s new production boasts a cracking cast, and a reduced City of London Sinfonia sensitively captures the work’s tender string writing and folk-infused melodies. “It’s froth, but deliciously served” – and “delivered with a final sprinkle of pink confetti, this is opera without tears, and none the worse for it” (until 31 July).
-
Woof! Britain's love affair with dogs
The Explainer The UK's canine population is booming. What does that mean for man's best friend?
-
Millet: Life on the Land – an 'absorbing' exhibition
The Week Recommends Free exhibition at the National Gallery showcases the French artist's moving paintings of rural life
-
Thomasina Miers picks her favourite books
The Week Recommends The food writer shares works by Arundhati Roy, Claire Keegan and Charles Dickens
-
6 laid-back homes for surfers
Feature Featuring a home near a world-renowned surf spot in Hawaii and a house built to withstand the elements in South Carolina
-
Twelfth Night or What You Will: a 'riotous' late-summer jamboree
The Week Recommends Robin Belfield's 'carnivalesque' new staging at Shakespeare's Globe is 'joyfully tongue-in-cheek'
-
Hostage: Netflix's 'fun, fast and brash potboiler'
The Week Recommends Suranne Jones is 'relentlessly defiant' as prime minister Abigail Dalton
-
Music reviews: Chance the Rapper, Cass McCombs, and Molly Tuttle
Feature "Star Line," "Interior Live Oak," and "So Long Little Miss Sunshine"
-
Film reviews: Eden and Honey Don't!
Feature Seekers of a new utopia spiral into savagery and a queer private eye prowls a high-desert town