Sunday, October 21, 2018
ALONE ON A WIDE, WIDE SEA      The Rime of the Ancient Mariner may be studded with overfamiliar quotations, but taken in its entirely, has power to disturb .…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 01:12PMFriday, October 19, 2018
LECHERY AND TREACHERY, MACHISMO AND METAL…  'I had forgotten†said a companion as we staggered out, deafened by the final outbreak of crazed metallic drumming, "ho…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 03:25AMThursday, October 18, 2018
ROMPING FABLE OF A GREASEPAINT CENTURY        Twins, three sets of them, in a dynasty of performers from the 1880s onward: a theatrical boarding-house with a h…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 06:59PMWednesday, October 17, 2018
FOR BETTER FOR WORSE? FOR FIVE MICE ANYWAY    If you're going to mess about with a classic but slightly dated Sondheim musical, be sure to do it brilliantly. Do it …
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 07:24PMCONCEPTION AND THE CREATIVES   It's a sign of the sparky credibility of Nina Raine's play about a woman desperate for a sperm donor – having broken with her younger, …
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 05:48PMMonday, October 15, 2018
THE HEIGHTS OF LIFE    Theatre sometimes gives films – and books – a remarkable translation, making stories deeper ,stranger , more tense.  …
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 11:05AMSaturday, October 13, 2018
THE YOUNG DARWIN RISES AGAIN     The Jerwood Gallery is for the first time a theatre: in the small excitement of a new space dark shapes loom ahead of us, angular, …
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 07:06AMFriday, October 12, 2018
LUKE JONES TAKES THE MEASURE.. This is a made for measure Measure-For-Measure. Its greatest achievement is hacking the flabby old Jacobian down to the right side of 90 minutes. It rol…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 04:44AMWednesday, October 10, 2018
A MASTERPIECE OF LOVE AND LOSS   I saw this on tour in Cambridge, and heroically held of telling you until the West End embargo lifted. It's wonderful: puzzling, moving, c…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 06:15AMTuesday, October 9, 2018
A DOSE HARD TO SWALLOW David Hare has chronicled Labour politics – and the state of the nation -for nearly half a century,  brilliantly catching truths and tensions. …
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 08:01PMFriday, October 5, 2018
THE EXTINCTION OF ENGLAND'S EASTERNMOST VILLAGE         There is no Grit fishing-village now on the Lowestoft shore, but in 1900 there were homes, shops,Â�…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 10:01AMThursday, October 4, 2018
DIVORCED BEHEADED DIED – REVIVED! Took me a shameful while to catch up on this clever little riot of a feminist musical, down from an Edinburgh triumph and packing the Ar…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 05:54PMWednesday, October 3, 2018
TALES OF A CITY    "I see a beautiful city†says a spotlit actor, and the rest take it up in styles from Radio 4 to rap, then group and regroup, changing with the s…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 04:48AMTuesday, October 2, 2018
WARM HEARTS,  COLD WAR After the Salisbury-Novichok affair there is a sour laugh when Stewart, the MI5 official, reassures the nervous Jackson family that the coming arres…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 06:22AMFriday, September 28, 2018
GUEST CRITIC BEN BLACKMORE MUSES ON CHEESE-KNIVES AND TELETUBBY HOUSES PINTER 2 announces itself in bold, Sex And The City-type projections, in the Sex And The City font as though it …
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 12:58PMSTEEL CELLS AND SADISM Â Â Â Settling in, you'd think you were at the Cenotaph or the Tattoo. Â A military soundtrack booms out Imperial Echoes and Jupiter (I Vow To Thee M…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 03:56AMWednesday, September 26, 2018
A GLORIOUS SERPENT OF OLD NILE    This can be a beast of a play: epic, three and a half hours, scenes spread across the Mediterranean from Rome to Cairo by land and sea.…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 07:12PMTuesday, September 25, 2018
MOLIERE IN THE MODERN MIDLANDS     It says something good about our arts establishment that this sharp caper comes from the Royal Shakespeare Company, not some …
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 12:00PMSaturday, September 22, 2018
PARENTHOOD, PRAYER , PROSECCO The renamed Tricycle (no, I am not taking sides) Â Is open:Â its leader Indhu Rubasingham launches her sprauncy new theatre with Alexis Zegerman's …
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 04:29AMThursday, September 20, 2018
DOING JUSTICE TO AGATHA Â (She'd have loved it!) Â Â Â Â Â Â The courtroom is the marbled council chamber of the old County Hall:the story by Agatha Christie even hoarier…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 03:55AMMonday, September 17, 2018
LOOKING OUT TO SEA, AT PAST AND FUTURE    With the feral teenage violence of HEATHERS (scroll to it below) all snarling and murdering in the West End, and the manic cheer…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 04:45PMSaturday, September 15, 2018
OUT OF AUSTERITY, A DREAM OF BEAUTY       A gulf yawns between this musical's two halves: a gulf of wealth, sophistication, hope and colour.  Ida Harr…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 02:23PMThursday, September 13, 2018
DARK LARKS AND HIGH SCHOOL HOMICIDE You thought there were enough school-themed musicals? What with Bring it On, School of Rock and our own dear cross-dressing Jamie…?Â…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 08:56PMA RARE OLD TIME IN DUBLIN , IN IPSWICH The miniature of Libby Watson's gorgeous Dublin pub set in the foyer raises your spirits straight away. Sometimes only an Irish pub w…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 03:52AMSunday, September 9, 2018
HUMANITY RISING FROM HORROR Â Â Â It is one of the oldest notions in the world: the unquiet grave. Â From Sophocles to modern campaigns we are haunted by the idea that the …
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 03:35AMFriday, September 7, 2018
 GUEST CRITIC MICHAEL ADAIR IS TRANSPORTED TO NEW YORK, AND FAMILY TRUTH The joy of a play like The Humans is that it can take a subject that feels as if it might have been …
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 12:05PMThursday, September 6, 2018
ONE OF BENNETT'S FINEST , ON THE ROAD AGAIN     Onstage is a shabby rehearsal room, an Oxford study scruffily indicated with doorframes and signs; at the side a litter of c…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 06:21AMWednesday, September 5, 2018
GRAND PLIE, FIRST POSITION, TURN…TWERK…    My friend and comrade-in-the stalls Mr Letts of the Mail has suggested ( by means of Twitter ,review on Friday, alway…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 05:23PMMonday, September 3, 2018
RAN IN MAIL (STAND-IN TEMPORARY CRITIC COULDN’T RESIST THIS.. SO HERE FOR THEATRECATTERS WHO MIGHT MISS IT.. THE LEAGUE OF GENTLEMEN LIVE Â Â Â Â Â Â SEC Glasg…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 12:08PMMonday, August 27, 2018
WAS STANDING IN AS DAILY MAIL CRITIC FOR A WEEK, SO DID NOT DO THESE ON THEATRECAT. HERE THEY ARE FOR T/CAT FOLLOWERS Â THOUGH, SLIGHTLY EXPANDED. COPENHAGENÂ Â Â Minerva, Chiches…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 06:05AMThursday, August 16, 2018
DARK LADY DEMANDING LIMELIGHT    The Globe has had some tremendous new-writing about history, for which it is nicely suited. Remember Howard Brenton's Anne Boleyn and…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 08:47AM 
