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Evening Standard
Evening Standard
Entertainment
Nick Curtis

The Tempest at Theatre Royal Drury Lane review: Sigourney Weaver in the West End is a thrill but the show fails to spark

It should have been magic but it fails to spark. Sigourney Weaver, an austerely commanding Hollywood star of the old school and a Broadway veteran, makes her West End debut for Jamie Lloyd, the visionary director who coaxed Nicole Scherzinger into Sunset Blvd and Emilia Clark into Chekhov.

She’s playing Prospero at Drury Lane for 64 performances only, 67 years after John Gielgud played the part here and prophesied that after him this great theatre would be “lost to musicals” and never again host Shakespeare. That Weaver’s Tempest is now taking place in a gap between the Disney blockbusters Frozen and Hercules should make it all the more special. But instead of lightning in a bottle, it’s a damp squib.

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