London’s theatre district – Theatreland – is one of my favourite parts of the city. There’s nothing quite like the heady atmosphere of the West End on a Saturday night when audiences are streaming into the theatres that line Shaftesbury Avenue and the Strand to see a play or a musical. I visit the theatre as often as I can, and I knew for a long time that I wanted to write a novel set in that world. Not that I’ve ever had any ambition to be a professional actress (I did take

For me, one of the best things about the summer is the chance to see a show performed in the open air. With its stage built out over Lake Thun, and with a backdrop of the Alps, the Thunerseespile in Switzerland has to be one of the most beautiful theatres in the world. It was here that I saw Aida (the musical, not the opera), and watching the characters of Aida and Radames sing a love duet, ‘Written in the Stars,’ as the sun sank behind the mountains and and the stars came ou

It’s beginning to feel a lot like Christmas. Time to deck the halls, mull the wine – and book for Pantomime. Oh, yes it is! I do love a good pantomime at Christmas, and as almost every theatre in Britain puts on a panto, there are a lot to choose from. Even the ancient Greeks enjoyed panto (we don’t have the scripts, but we know there were complaints about the scurrilous jokes) but the family shows we see today evolved from the 16th century Italian Commedia dell’arte. In E