Thursday, 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 08:47AMTuesday, August 14, 2018
WHAT LARKS… There is a swimming-pool ladder, a rubber-ring shaped like a swan, a robotic golf cart, some decorative flamingos (one used as a weapon) , and a statue of Queen E…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 07:16PMFriday, August 10, 2018
GUEST REVIEWER CHARLOTTE VALORI MARVELS AT GREEK PERFECTION AT GRIMEBORN Like the roar of an older, bolder London, Mark-Anthony Turnage's GREEK bounces snarling onto the Grimeborn stage, cel…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 08:42PMLA PETITE PIAF, REVENANTE..   I grew up with Piaf, a temporary French schoolchild in 1960, skated around the patinoire with my friends snarling along with the endless plays of "J…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 09:42AMGUEST REVIEWER CHARLOTTE VALORI FINDS THE BOYS GET ALL THE DRAMA AT GRIMEBORN Lucia di Lammermoor is an opera of shocking brutality, with savage emotional aggression rivalling physical viole…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 06:21AMDREAMS AND LEGENDS OF DECAY Brian Friel's gift is humane ambiguity, refusing to allow tidy judgements on his characters . Or even – though his theme is Ireland's history…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 04:03AMWednesday, August 8, 2018
HIP HOP HURRAH ON THE WRONG SIDE OF THE TRACKS Here's a hot one, in every sense. Clapped till my hands stuck together at this youthful, truthful, touching and funny tale of acroba…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 04:31AMTuesday, August 7, 2018
GUEST REVIEWER CHARLOTTE VALORI FINDS REVOLUTION NOT GOING FAR IN A WORLD PREMIERE AT GRIMEBORN Prometheus stole fire from the gods in order to ensure human progress, and met with a grisly e…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 07:34PMFriday, August 3, 2018
A HANDBAG?  You're not often given a surprise by Lane the butler in in his short appearance,  as he delivers those immortally celebrated cucumber sandwiches to the piano-st…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 04:19AMThursday, August 2, 2018
DANCE AND DEFIANCE BELOW THE WAVES    Metta theatre's hit JUNGLE BOOK was fashionably hip-hop before Hamilton hit (and was certainly the only time I ever heard gri…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 05:15PMGUEST CRITIC  and sharp-eyed millennial BEN BLACKMORE DOES THE STATE (well, theatrecat) SOME SERVICE…. Rating three   box office shakeapearesglobe.com  to 13 Oct I have ne…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 11:17AMWednesday, August 1, 2018
RETROMANIA AS A ROAD TO RUIN In a lovely dolls-house set, Judy bustles about happily in a gay flouncy full skirt and pinny. She runs hubby's morning bath, makes his packed…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 03:34AMTuesday, July 31, 2018
GUEST REVIEWER CHARLOTTE VALORI VOTES FOR ETHEL SMYTH AT GRIMEBORN The celebrations of the centenary of Women's Suffrage in Britain have reached Dalston's cultural heartland as Spectra Ensem…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 06:11AMFriday, July 27, 2018
MADNESS, MENACE, MAJESTY        You need not be aged – or even a man – to be a memorable Lear. But there is an intense and concentrated emotion to …
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 05:50AMThursday, July 26, 2018
A FERTILE DESPAIR This is two hours of  treasure. Barry Humphries of course always was one, in all his characters, and this time he puts on "the most subtle and intricate disguise�…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 03:32AMTuesday, July 24, 2018
A CLASSIC OF POWER, PUZZLEMENT AND A DIFFICULT WOMAN     Sometimes less is more and understatement gives a show its sharpest edge. Which is not to suggest, perish t…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 04:33AMMonday, July 23, 2018
BEYOND THE JOKES, A WHIFF OF SULPHUR…     Danny Robins' funny, credible, sharp-tongued play pivots round four figures of central cultural importance to modern Bri…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 07:12AMFriday, July 20, 2018
RATHER LATE BUT WORTH IT….A FERTILE ARGUMENTÂ Forty years ago as a Today reporter I helped cover the first IVF baby , Louise Brown. A Scottish cardinal told me that it was si…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 08:42AMWednesday, July 18, 2018
DRIPS 'N DRUGS 'N ROCK 'N ROLL… Â Â Alan Bennett may fear he is a national teddy bear these days, but the crafty old bugger still has a gnarled finger on the nation's trick…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 06:19PMA TREE, A TEENAGER, A FAMILY TRAGEDY This is billed for ten years old or more, and its protagonist is a boy of thirteen. But warned: this  Old Vic young adult su…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 03:11AMSunday, July 15, 2018
MARIA MARTEN STRIDES AGAIN: A WOMAN'S STORY   Founding this touring company 36 years ago, Ivan Cutting swore a great oath that one local story they wouldn't do …
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 07:42AMFriday, July 13, 2018
FLUENT, FASCINATING,  FUN. FIVE!  This show has no right to be so much fun.  Over three hours, two intervals, three middle-aged blokes in black suits in a revol…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 08:37AMThursday, July 12, 2018
STRIDING OUT OF THE FRAME : A KICK-ASS HEROINE OF THEATRE Theatre owes a lot to Joan Littlewood: daughter of East End larkiness , music-hall jangle and tough 1930's socialism; idealis…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 05:04AMTuesday, July 10, 2018
OH WHAT A TREAT… OI!        The sun has got his hat on, England's in the semi-final under a chap with a proper waistcoat, and Noel Gay's 1937 musical i…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 09:19AMSunday, July 8, 2018
CHARLOTTE VALORI FINDS SAND, SEA AND SERIOUSNESS AT BUXTON On his way home from victory at Troy, Cretan king Idomeneo's ship is caught in a dreadful storm. In desperation, he vows to Neptune…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 07:22PMSaturday, July 7, 2018
CHARLOTTE VALORI UNCOVERS FORGOTTEN INCA GOLD WITH VERDI IN BUXTON Verdi's little-known opera about Peruvian Incas and Spanish conquistadors, Alzira, has finally received its UK premiere at …
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 07:35PMA REVIVAL CRASHING WITH NEW LIFE AND ANCIENT DARKNESS A heatwave in festival season, everyone's muzzy yearning for greenwood misrule: it's perfect timing for the dangerous…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 09:42AMThursday, July 5, 2018
CRITIC AND HELLRAISER LUKE JONES WINCES AND LAUGHS … This is as violent as anything I've seen on the stage. And I'm including in this survey that Titus Andronicus at the Globe w…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 05:42AMWednesday, June 13, 2018
A RISOTTO OF RESENTMENTS In some plays, you reach the interval not exactly dissatisfied but wondering "where is this going next? How will it knit up the ends.? So m…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 07:21AMTuesday, June 12, 2018
MICHAEL ADAIRÂ SHUDDERS AT THE HARD OLD PATRIARCHY… 'These modern neurotic women, doctor. What are we going to do with them?' says one exasperated male character to another. H…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 09:02AMThursday, June 7, 2018
STRINDBERG MEETS STENHAM, BIRD MEETS BLENDER We're in a Hampstead mansion. The daughter of the house is whooping it up at her birthday party, a deafening, purple-lit rave where tight-…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 06:28PM 
