About me

Hello and welcome to my theatre review blog. Something that has been an idea and suggested by others for a while now. Firstly I’m an early 30’s IT assistant manager in finance working in London. Just to make it clear I have no qualifications linked to theatre, performing arts or music/musicals and my family don’t either. exluding my A* GCSE in Drama which would later feed the love of straight plays. I am just a huge self confessed “theatre nerd”. This blog is designed to give a review from a “Normal” non critic point of view using the experience and knowledge I have gained over the many years and hundreds of shows I have seen across the West End and Broadway.

A little background on how I got “into” musicals and the theatre. My first west end production and the caterlist for my musical theatre love was “Jospeh and the amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat” at the New London Theatre (now Gillian Lynne Theatre) back in 2004.

At this time I had no interest in musicals or theatre in general, I was year 7 of secondary school aged around 12. It was seeing this show and its literal song and dance and production value that flicked a switch and ignited a spark in me. It wasn’t a “I have to be on stage doing it” spark it was a “this is amazing and I need to see and hear more of this”. This quickly progressed into buying the cast recording (Not soundtrack) and learning every song even though I am well aware I have no talent in singing. 

Living outside London and being in full time education meant it was difficult in these early days to see West End shows. As a result only seeing shows very occasionally. During this time I was lucky to have my musical theatre fix in the form of ALW (Andrew Lloyd Webber) TV talent searching shows like “I’d do anything”, “how to you solve a problem like Maria”, “Any dream will do” and “Over the rainbow”. It was these shows which have brought some the best current musical theatres performers to the spotlight (Quite literally) including Samantha Barks. 

With a part time job during college and university I was able to increase my show count during this time. Including travelling to the west end on my own for the first time to see Wicked with Lee Mead as Fiyero. 

This show count increased greatly when I was able to obtain a job in central London. Within a very short time it meant I had seen all the musicals running in the west end. So logically the only option I had was to have a holiday in New York to see the unseen musicals over there. At the time I didn’t know this would turn into a bi annual pilgrimage to broadway. 

On my return from my first broadway trip, it dawned on me that musical theatre was not all the West End had to offer. So thinking back to the experienced gained during my drama GCSE I started to go to plays within the West End. When starting to see straight plays I watched my first show at the National Theatre. A place that before this I had never heard off (I know, at this time my theatre knowledge was very lacking. I am happy to report my theatre knowledge has increased greatly over the last 10 plus years). It was after seeing “An Octoroon” at the Dorfman, I started to look more into the NT. This resulted in me signing up to become a young Pateron (a great scheme along with the Pateron scheme, Highly recommend to anyone with a love of the theatre). Three years on and I progressed up to am a Young Ambasddor Pateron and a very active member within the group including a yearly trip to the Ed fringe. 

Having been working London since 2014 I have seen hundreds of shows each one along with the year I watched it can be found here. 

So why now to start a blog on theatre reviews. Not only was it heavily suggested by friends and family after I keep giving show advice and reviews. I feel that I have now seen enough shows to give a good comprehensive honest “Theatre fan” review of a show based on my knowledge and experiences of the shows I have seen. 

A quick note on the name “A SPURDLE reviews”. It’s pretty simple. I wanted something unique so my family name of SPURDLE made sense. So it’s A Spurdle (Me) reviews…. A west or Broadway theatre show. 

 Before I finish this “About me” page I thought you might like to know my favourite show and theatre space:

Favourite show (A question I get asked a lot) I always respond with “Wicked” even though there is lots of musicals and plays that could fight for the title. For me this was the first show I watched on my own in London and the music and lyrics are still amazing to this day. 

At this point normally when you say to people you are a musical theatre fan they start mentioning “classic shows” seven brides for seven brothers etc… I think have to clarify I do not enjoy that style of musical theatre. It is what I call “Modern” musical theatre I enjoy. Anything from the 80s onwards. 

My favourite theatre or theatre space has to be the dorfman at the NT. The devise nature this space can provide from being in the round, having a stage cross the centre of the stalls (Death of England) to a more conventional setting. Big enough to create an atmosphere but smaller enough to keep it intimate. It’s an Edinburgh Fringe esc theatre space in London. It is such an amazing space and recommend seeing every show there if you can as you really don’t know what you’re going to get. 

To wrap up, I on average see around 4 shows a month in the West End with a bi annual pilgrimage to Broadway for around 8 shows a year. I expect to post the full review within a few days of seeing the show. The social pages will be updated while at the theatre so you will be able to see what review to expect next. So please follow along for a non expert but true fan reviews of West End and Broadway show reviews from musical theatre to straight plays and everything in between. Once a year there will be a special Edinburgh fringe post from my annual trip with the National Thaeatre. 

Finally I hope you like the reviews and feel free to interact on Instagram, X (Twitter) [@ASpurdleReviews] or the Facebook page A Spurdle Reviews or via the comments on this site.