All stories by Friends on BroadwayStars

Saturday, August 24, 2019

ORIGAMI SOUNDSCAPES /THE CRANE Arcola, E8 by Libby Purves and Friends

GUEST REVIEWER CHARLOTTE VALORI FINDS NOT MUCH UNFOLDING AT GRIMEBORN I have to admit – I’m a sucker for a bit of rarefied Japanese elegance on stage in almost any context: the very ment…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 04:10AM
Thursday, August 22, 2019

THE WEATHERMAN Park Theatre by Libby Purves and Friends

GUEST REVIEWER  BEN DOWELL SEES A GOOD SUBJECT NOT QUITE GETTING THERE…   The trafficking of human beings – 7,000 identified in the UK in 2018 – is a disgusting blight on our country…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 12:05PM
Wednesday, August 21, 2019

8 HOTELS Minerva, Chichester by Libby Purves and Friends

A GRIPPING PIECE OF HISTORY              In 1944  the adventurous British director Peggy Webster cast the first black Othello in the USA,  where for a white woman even to walk with …

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 11:34AM
Thursday, August 15, 2019

COUNT ORY Arcola, E8 by Libby Purves and Friends

GUEST REVIEWER CHARLOTTE VALORI GETS INTO THE BLITZ SPIRIT WITH OPERA ALEGRIA AT GRIMEBORN Rossini’s Le Comte Ory is a flirtatious farce in which a naughty young Count drives everyone de…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 01:37AM
Friday, August 9, 2019

GO BANG YOUR TAMBOURINE Finborough, SE10 by Libby Purves and Friends

A YOUTHFUL HALLELUJAH          ANother fascinating London premiere for Two’s Company and the Finborough,  buried for nearly half a century after one brief 1970 tour .    As Philip …

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 07:52AM
Thursday, August 8, 2019

DIE FLEDERMAUS Arcola, E8 by Libby Purves and Friends

GUEST REVIEWER CHARLOTTE VALORI GOES BATS FOR BASELESS FABRIC’S SOCIAL MEDIA TAKE ON STRAUSS “I’m not saying I’m Batman. I’m just saying nobody has ever seen me and Batman in a roo…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 03:36AM
Saturday, August 3, 2019

DAS RHEINGOLD Arcola, E8 by Libby Purves and Friends

GUEST REVIEWER CHARLOTTE VALORI CAN’T GET ENOUGH OF GRIMEBORN’S GLITTERING TREASURE The Ring Cycle is opera’s biggest box set: a sixteen-hour binge of dwarves, nymphs, dragons, gods, h…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 09:18PM

ROMEO AND JULIET           Jimmy’s Farm, Wherstead Suffolk by Libby Purves and Friends

   ROCK ’N ROLL N’ ROMEO        Deep under the trees, beyond Jimmy’s meerkat and camel enclosures lies a 1960’s beach: shelter, deckchairs and lounging teens,  Mods and Rocker…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 09:00AM
Friday, August 2, 2019

MISS HAVISHAM’S WEDDING NIGHT /12 POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON Arcola, E8 by Libby Purves and Friends

GUEST REVIEWER CHARLOTTE VALORI GOES MAD FOR AMERICAN MONODRAMA A pairing of two American music dramas promised plenty of angsty feminist fun for a Friday night at Grimeborn; and I admit, in…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 08:39PM
Thursday, August 1, 2019

SHACKLETON’S CARPENTER Jermyn St, SW1 by Libby Purves and Friends

HEROIC ENDURANCE            In the background a lecture in the old Home Service style, decorous and passionless,  finishes relating the story of Sir Ernest Shackleton’s expedition: …

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 05:03AM
Tuesday, July 23, 2019

OKLAHOMA                   Chichester Festival Theatre by Libby Purves and Friends

COWBOYS WITHOUT INDIANS         I suppose it’s perverse to start at the end, but of all the aspects of Jeremy Sams’ handsome production of the Rodgers & Hammerstein crowd-pleaser…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 11:34AM
Wednesday, July 17, 2019

THE NIGHT OF THE IGUANA       Noel Coward, WC2 by Libby Purves and Friends

FALLEN ANGELS ENDURING THE STORM         You can feel the heat in Rae Smith’s design,  Mexican sun on the rock overhead, and the corrugated iron roofs of the rundown hotel. Somewher…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 05:30AM
Friday, July 12, 2019

   JOSEPH AND THE AMAZING TECHNICOLOUR DREAMCOAT                London Palladium W1 by Libby Purves and Friends

  IT’S BACK,  YOUNGER THAN EVER…     We love a starry debut, especially on opening night in a huge theatre:   a 21-year-old not yet through drama school making a stonking, belting …

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 10:31AM
Friday, July 5, 2019

MEASURE FOR MEASURE Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford upon Avon by Libby Purves and Friends

DEVOTION , DISGUISE,  DECADENCE     What a strange and stirring play this is!    Set in convent, court and condemned-cell,  it is spiked with moral ambiguities and fuelled equally by s…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 01:03PM
Thursday, July 4, 2019

THE END OF HISTORY Royal Court SW1 by Libby Purves and Friends

BLAIR TO BREXIT – A FAMILY TALE         Jack Thorne and director John Tiffany,  are the Harry Potter team.  They know how not to bore.   But they’ve been here before too in a  R…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 05:29AM
Wednesday, July 3, 2019

NOISES OFF Lyric, Hammersmith by Libby Purves and Friends

FARCE AS LIFE, LIFE AS FARCE, FRAYN AGAIN TRIUMPHANS        It felt like a pilgrimage,  homage to pay.   37 years ago Michael Frayn’s greatest of comedies, a wicked love-song to the …

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 06:01AM
Sunday, June 30, 2019

PRESENT LAUGHTER Old Vic SE1 by Libby Purves and Friends

COMEDY SHADING TO MELANCHOLY: WHAT’S TO COME IS STILL UNSURE…     First of all  let’s say that  Andrew Scott is a marvel, a 21st century Ur-Coward hero,  who manages to do it with…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 06:06PM
Saturday, June 29, 2019

AFTER DARK – A DRAMA OF LONDON LIFE Finborough, SW10 by Libby Purves and Friends

A SHILLING SHOCKER IS A JOY FOREVER     To come clean:  one reason I dashed to catch this fresh back from holiday is  not only that the Finborough is always interesting,   but that  fa…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 03:40AM
Thursday, June 27, 2019

THE HUNT Almeida, N1 by Libby Purves and Friends

GUEST CRITIC BEN DOWELL SHIVERS – ADMIRINGLY – AT A TROUBLED TALE   In this hypersensitive age of MeToo accusations, anxieties about online pornography and even deeper-seated disquiet a…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 09:58AM
Thursday, June 13, 2019

THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY    Jermyn St Theatre WC2 by Libby Purves and Friends

RANCID LILIES, GORGEOUS WORDS       All the little Jermyn needs to complete this reimagination of Wildean epigrammatic decadence is to scent the auditorium overwhelmingly with lilies and …

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 08:02AM
Tuesday, June 11, 2019

A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM Bridge, SE1 by Libby Purves and Friends

FLYING,   FUNNY,  FABULOUS     This is a dream of a Dream.  One expected fun from the  combination of Nicholas Hytner,  a roiling mass of promenaders in the pit  and a Bunny Christie…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 04:38PM
Sunday, June 2, 2019

THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON – a note Southwark, SE1 by Libby Purves and Friends

A NOTE ON A TREAT,  MOUSELESS BUT MELLOW    The film based on Scott Fitzgerald’s story of a life lived backwards, born old and ending in babyhood,  was pretty awful.  So I did not le…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 03:44AM
Wednesday, May 29, 2019

RUTHERFORD AND SON Lyttelton, SE1 by Libby Purves and Friends

BULLYING, BOMBAST,   BETRAYAL      The rediscovery of Githa Sowerby in the 1990s is very satisfying.     At its premiere in 1913 critics saw the quality of this one but were dismayed …

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 06:46AM
Thursday, May 16, 2019

ORPHEUS DESCENDING Menier, SE1 by Libby Purves and Friends

SULTRY, SINFUL, SHOCKING, SHINING           Savagely observed  absurdity, blinding flashes of insight,  profound yearning, sudden poetry singing clear notes from the cruel  swamp of …

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 12:31PM

    SMALL ISLAND. Olivier, SE1 by Libby Purves and Friends

AN INTIMATE EPIC IN A FADING  EMPIRE    Hard to overstate what an absolute treat this is , and on how many levels. It is a terrific yarn,  both romantic and tough, about history and Empi…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 12:11PM
Friday, May 10, 2019

THE PROVOKED WIFE             Swan, Stratford upon Avon by Libby Purves and Friends

            There’s something special about fin-de-siecle anger in any century: this is from 1697,  years later than Wycherley and the mellower Sheridan,  and  best described as a…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 10:33AM
Tuesday, May 7, 2019

FEAST FROM THE EAST              Tristan Bates Theatre WC2 by Libby Purves and Friends

SMALL IS  BEAUTIFUL, SHORT CAN BE SHARP        There is something stimulating about ultra-short plays:  five to twenty minutes  but directed and performed with all the care and concen…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 06:07AM
Monday, May 6, 2019

SHADOWLANDS               Chichester Festival Theatre by Libby Purves and Friends

LOVE  AND LOSS AND ‘THAT’S THE DEAL’        Jack is a middle-aged Oxford English don of the ’50’s , a bachelor and apologist for Christianity.  Graceful, witty books and lect…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 12:15PM
Friday, May 3, 2019

JUDE Hampstead, NW1 by Libby Purves and Friends

ECHOES OF ANTIQUITY ,  FRESHNESS OF YOUTH          It’s a storming performance. Young  Isabella Nefar  as Judith erupts upon us:   adolescent, exuberant,  afire with defiance and…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 05:10AM
Thursday, May 2, 2019

ROSMERSHOLM                     Duke of York’s, WC2 by Libby Purves and Friends

GUILT, GRIEF,   POLITICAL ANGUISH            Handy timing ,  to open on what is  local Election Day for us ruralists and at a time when everything has a Brexity echo too.     Ibse…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 05:51PM
Tuesday, April 30, 2019

CREDITORS              Jermyn Street Theatre by Libby Purves and Friends

DEADLY DEBTS       The artistic  love affair between  August Strindberg’s ghost,  playwright Howard Brenton and  director Tom Littler continues to bear strange fruit,  surprisingl…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 05:00PM