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I caught up with Simon to talk about the upcoming transfer of 'Curious Incident.' We met just down the road from the show's new home at the Apollo Theatre on Shaftesbury Avenue - yet despite it being minutes away Simon hadn't gone to look at the marquee which had just gone up. I wondered why?
Last night, I had a middle-aged Scottish woman gyrating on top of me in the centre of a whooping audience of 130 people. Earlier in the week, I made up an audience-of-one for the strangest show in town as I sat bound and blindfolded while being wheeled around a dark basement - with strangers caressing and feeding me before a woman pushed me on to a bed and stretched out on top of me.
God's Property is a new play set in 1982 - a time of inner city tensions, unemployment and riots. The timing of the play, written by Soho Six writer Arinze Kene, is apt.
Matthew Bourne's haunting new scenario is a gothic tale for all ages; the traditional tale of good vs. evil and rebirth is turned upside-down, creating a supernatural love story, across the decades, that even the passage of time itself cannot hinder.
It would be a cliché to say that James McAvoy inhabited the part; also inaccurate. It's much closer to the truth to say that he was possessed by it. Every beautifully rolled Scottish word, sounded like it had just occurred to him and issued forth that moment for the first time.
As a Liverpool fan, this reviewer must admit that he had a vested interest in seeing this play. Few subjects pull at the heartstrings quite so much as the Hillsborough tragedy, so it was with morbid curiosity that I sat down to watch Luke Barnes' Bottleneck at the Soho Theatre.
Describing Lady Rizo is a bit like trying to explain 'Django Unchained' or 'Pulp Fiction' to someone who has never seen a Tarantino movie. Both deliberately push against categorisation. She's funny, yes, but not at the expense of being dark and thoughtful.
The show is a time capsule, in look, style, music and design. A piece of 70s theatre which feels as fresh and relevant today as ever.
Such is the impression this one man monologue made upon up me, that I left Waterloo East Theatre staring at my iPhone with a new found suspicion and more than a hint of guilt.
Surreal comedy treads a fine line; it either seems to work emphatically or leave the audience bemused and alienated.
If you go to one theater performance this winter, make it the Persona Company's production of Aimé Césaire's epic poem Cahier d'un retour au pays natal.
I am about to embark on one of the most challenging roles of my life: playing Edith Piaf. I have been learning nine of Edith Piaf's songs in French and languages have never been my forte. So the French is a challenge, let alone the fact that my role is in every scene.
No lover of Shakespeare - on page or on stage - will fail to recognise the wordplay or pun on the proper names of Shakespeare's characters.
There's always a glimmer of excitement when a new British musical arrives on the scene, we wonder if we'll discover the next Lloyd Webber and if we'll find a show to celebrate.
Metamorphosis has been a hit throughout the world and as the cliché goes, it's easy to see why. Turning Kafka's short story into a piece which is part physical theatre, part simmering and charged domestic drama is no mean feat but it is accomplished with transfixing beauty, dark comedy and graceful tragedy.
Theatreland is (appropriately) always a dramatic place, but even by industry standards 2012 was a particularly eventful year. The Queen's Jubilee and the triumphant Olympics and Paralympics meant all eyes were on the UK, and of course London.
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