Wednesday, September 14, 2022
EVEN A SNAIL WILL REACH ITS HOME That’s a Nigerian saying, apparently. But shiny though the shell is, Richard Eyre’s play becomes a frustrating stew of ideas, attitud…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 06:39PMTuesday, September 13, 2022
SAYERS, SAYING IT FOR WORKING WOMEN Here’s a treat: first half in Venice (with a glorious Canaletto backdrop) and the second, after some elegant Jermyn set-changing, in a London playw…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 06:50PMSaturday, September 3, 2022
GUEST REVIEWER CHARLOTTE VALORI FINDS SOME INTERESTING THREADS SLIGHTLY UNRAVELLED AT GRIMEBORN Fringe opera festivals sometimes give us a chance to see new work in progress – i.e. unfinis…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 06:15AMWednesday, August 24, 2022
A SPIKY AND SPECTACULAR DELIGHT Humanity in every century has needed to plunge into the dark forests, questing or fleeing, finding wonders or wolves: it’s in Dan…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 07:04PMThursday, August 18, 2022
IT’S BACK: A NEW DIRECTION HOME This humbly immense, uniquely created show threw me for a loop five summers ago. It’s back on tour, via Oliviers and Broadway awards, with its…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 07:47AMGUEST REVIEWER CHARLOTTE VALORI GETS SWEPT UP IN THE MAGIC, THE MUSIC AND THE META Opera Alegria’s vivacious foray into Mozart’s Magic Flute for Grimeborn takes its inspiration from the …
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 07:00AMThursday, August 11, 2022
VOICES FROM THE GRAVE AND THE CELLAR, UNIGNORABLE Timely, enterprising, emotionally shattering, politically shaming. These two plays were both both first born at the time of …
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 05:20PMTuesday, August 9, 2022
CARRY ON. OR, TO PUT IT ANOTHER WAY, KEEP MESSIN’ ABOUT… My first concern was, will they dare give us the sadness? Kenneth Williams was a comic marvel self-created, a versatile act…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 05:40PMWednesday, August 3, 2022
GLITTER AND HARD GRAFT A basement hung with glitter strings, a small moody band with earthy bass, a bar: few better places to revel in torch songs, deep-dug anthems and memory o…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 06:52PMMUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. Lyttelton, SE1 SHAKESPEARE IN THE SWING AGE A star danced, and under it was Simon Godwin’s joyful, 1930s Riviera production born. Quite apart fro…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 12:47PM STARRY SISTERHOOD IN OLD VIENNA Identical twin girls, separated at birth in their parents divorce, meet at summer camp and resolve to swop places. Remember “The Parent Trap�…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 05:13AMSaturday, July 30, 2022
THE SCOTTISH PLAY ON ANCIENT TURF “This castle hath a pleasant seat..” Indeed it does: Red Rose Chain’s traditional outdoor show now lives alongside the mysterious mounds wh…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 07:40AMWednesday, July 27, 2022
101 DALMATIANS Open Air Theatre, Regent’s Park NW1 BARKING IN THE PARK Wooof! The OAT’s new show, bounding and cavorting along under the direction of that am…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 09:18AMTuesday, July 26, 2022
CHARLIE IS , ONCE AGAIN, OUR DANCING DARLING… Foiled by heatwave and trains, I made it six days later to the summer’s highlight, the glorious absurdity of this wickedly succ…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 06:35AMSaturday, July 23, 2022
Twice lately, under tall oaks and pines on what is becoming known as Suffolk’s mini-Minack, I have encountered touring opera companies doing wonderfully, relaxedly, professionall…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 06:21AMThursday, July 14, 2022
SCRAMBLE! CHOCKS AWAY! Who knew that Caroline Quentin could achieve (almost) the splits, while strumming a ukulele? Or that that Richard Bean and Chris Oliver – who a decade ago…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 07:01PMDECK-LICIOUS, DELOVELY, SAILING BACK IN STYLE A year on, and after a partly recast tour, SS America drops anchor back in the Barbican and in style. Actually feels even better than before. …
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 05:45AMTuesday, July 12, 2022
MOTHER RUSSIA AND ITS MEN Here’s a fresh history play: confrontational , shocking, classic in its focus on vast flawed characters and pretty close to documented – and very re…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 07:49PMFriday, July 8, 2022
MOB JUSTICE, NO JUSTICE There are women who, seeing a friend in an almost-good outfit, cannot help reaching out: adjusting a belt , removing an ill-judged frill, suggesting a hat.�…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 11:42AMThursday, July 7, 2022
STEP BACK TO THE SIXTIES SIMPLICITIES… Once again , off to this most enticing dinner-theatre embedded in a historic treasure, its big real watermill whirling away in the bar and the …
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 04:35PMTuesday, July 5, 2022
The review below is from its Chichester opening a couple of weeks back. So just a note on seeing it again: something that could well become a habit, because it really is rich snd fine. It wo…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 06:11PMThursday, June 30, 2022
THE BOTTLED SPIDER, HEDGEHOG, ABORTIVE ROOTING HOG, IS BACK…MAGNIFICENTLY The winter of discontent made glorious summer is ushered in with a wild conga round the stage under…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 07:00PMWednesday, June 29, 2022
ALL GREEK TO US, AND TOPICAL WITH IT Fascinating to see how, despite many light tempting fatuities and sentimentalities onscreen and onstage, and the countercurrents of self conscious experi…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 04:37AMTuesday, June 28, 2022
IT HAS COME TO FRUITION. REJOICE! In a spirit of joyful pastiche, it’s a Sweeney-Todd sound that opens the show: “`Prepare! To be made Aware! Of the most successful Labour Premier…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 06:31AMSunday, June 26, 2022
OF MAN’S FIRST DISOBEDIENCE…. Thorington is a new outdoor theatre, a beautiful bomb-crater amid tall sighing pine trees and beneath a great oak in Suffolk. It runs only one-night, …
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 01:08PMSaturday, June 18, 2022
VIA MEDIA ANGLICANA IN A NEW JERUSALEM We’re in a vicarage kitchen in a small West Country town, its incumbent dealing with parishioners, a resentful, weary wife and two daugh…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 08:00AMSunday, May 15, 2022
WOOLFING ROUND THE GENDER BEND A bit of a conversion experience for me, this. Disliked Woolf for years, Lighthouse and Waves and all, and therefore never read Orlando. Thought of it as a bit…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 10:14AMA DARKER HAZE ON AMERICA’S MEADOW Traditionally, audiences don’t go to Oklahoma to be unsettled . On the other hand you don’t go to the Young Vic to have your expectations cosily met…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 04:18AMFriday, May 13, 2022
TEENS FALLING, UNPROTECTED An empty basement in a working class Kentucky neighbourhood in the mid 70s. An offstage adult world is preoccupied with unemployment, the mained young c…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 06:34AMThursday, May 12, 2022
A SCRUTABLE TAKE ON CHINA This is a beguiling 70-minute solo show from the actor, writer, wandering maverick entrepreneur and China pundit Mark Kitto. He plays three parts in seq…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 08:24AMMonday, May 9, 2022
VOICES FROM THE VALLEYS It is a curious feeling to be half charmed and half irritated by a production: one moment absorbed in a confrontation and engaged with a character, the next…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 05:21AM 
