"Summer Holiday" / "Let It Be" / "H.O.R.S.E."

I’ve paid two visits to the Wales Millennium Centre in the past couple of weeks, to see and review large-scale touring productions in the Donald Gordon Auditorium. First on the agenda was a revival of the West End adaptation of the Cliff Richard film “Summer Holiday”, with a surprisingly charismatic Ray Quinn in the leading role, and a charmingly ramshackle London bus. The week later came the rebooted Beatles musical, “Let It Be” – not much more than a lavish tribute band performance, but extremely well done, with the songs given due respect.

"Let It Be" (Annerin Productions/Mark Goucher Productions )

In between came “H.O.R.S.E.” at Chapter – a collaboration between performance artist Tim Bromage and magician Joseph Badman, with paranoia and U.S. Government research into paranormal powers as themes – well executed, but falling a little awkwardly between the two disciplines, I felt.