SCI-FI AND SORROW We begin with a tiny proscenium box, an almost Punch-and-Judy window, framing Harry and his wife Max: nice middle-aged people, evoked to sitcom perfection by a beard…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 04:35AM[SHARE]  THE JOINT IS JUMPING! AGAIN…   Openings are running in themed  sets – three Restoration comedies coming along like No.11 buses, and now two …
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 04:35AM[SHARE]SWOTS OR SWINDLERS, VILLAINS OR VICTIMS? Sometimes a West End transfer serves a play royally. At Chichester last year I enjoyed James Graham's playful, thoughtfully mischievous…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 05:39PM[SHARE]CATHY, STILL NOT HOME AFTER FIFTY YEARS Homeless charities like to remind us of the mantra: we are all just two bad decisions away from the pavement. The trajectory of our heroine Cat…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 05:53AM[SHARE]SHORT, SHARP, STIMULATING    The INK new writing festival (http://inkfestival.org) is a phenomenon: a space where writers of any experience or none can submit short plays …
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 10:03AM[SHARE]FROTHING OVER WITH FEMALE HILARITY A pre-curtain ensemble of one harpsichord and a quartet of periwigged lady saxophonists, playing Mozart with a touch of oompah, is always…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 07:48PM[SHARE]IT'S THAT SHOW AGAIN, AND VERY WELCOME TOO It's WW2 themed. Gas masks, posters, programmes in an ARP fire-bucket and rude songs to cheer the troops on leave and show Hitler that Brita…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 10:02AM[SHARE]HARD HOMECOMINGS FOR THE DOGS OF WAR Boots, boots, boots, boots: stamping out the immemorial rhythm of army discipline, nineteen men and women move as one, expressionless, freed for a…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 04:21PM[SHARE]A SOLO REFLECTION ON PUBERTY AND AFTER. Naomi Sheldon's solo, semi-autobiographical hour comes from Edinburgh crowned with plaudits, though cunningly in the programme she does …
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 08:32AM[SHARE]FOR ONCE IN A LIFETIME THE DEAR MENIER DOES NOT MAKE GUEST REVIEWER LUKE JONES HAPPY. NOT HAPPY AT ALL.  EXCEPT AT THE PROJECTIONS. Two prisoners are locked in an Argent…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 07:35AM[SHARE]IT'S THAT MAN AGAIN… It is awkward that two major new productions of the Scottish Play, by two determinedly auteurish directors, open in the same month. Rufus Norris' bleak "pos…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 07:16PM[SHARE]GUEST CRITIC JENNIFER-JANE BENJAMIN FINDS WHAT MATTERS Lights up. A confederate statue. A blackout. And it disappears. It's November 1963 and we're in Lake Charles, Louisiana. JFK has…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 12:43PM[SHARE]SILENT, SIGNIFICANT CREATURES The candlelit Wanamaker has proved its worth as a music-room, notably with All The Angels and the divine Farinelli. This takes it further with the first …
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 12:13PM[SHARE]Â DANGEROUS DAYS AND COURAGEOUS SCIENCE This terrific meteorological thriller, set in the crucial days before D-Day, is written by – and stars – David Haig. In 20…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 07:52AM[SHARE]FREE HANKY WITH EVERY PROGRAMME (honest..!) Ten years ago Emma Rice and her Kneehigh group brought this adaptation of Noel Coward’s heartrending film to the stage – to a c…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 10:15AM[SHARE]A DARK SEASIDE PARABLE If there is one stumbling block for lovers of Graham Greene's darkly thrilling gangster novel, it is the elegance of Gloria Onitiri. She is Ida; and Gree…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 06:40AM[SHARE]DICKENS EXCEEDING Â EXPECTATIONS Putting great literary masterpieces onstage is an erratic business. Within the same week we see the Artistic Director of the National Theatre…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 08:41AM[SHARE]SACRED AND PROFANE LOVE Is love a Gothic Cathedral, a yearning for a permanent, holy, respectful connection to the best in our nature? Or is it lust and fun, animal attraction,…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 02:19PM[SHARE]THE SCOTTISH PLAY, DARK AND DANK You don't expect robes and battlements these days. This is a shaven-head-and-machete Macbeth, its theme an indeterminate, timeless squalor: pos…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 05:32PM[SHARE]LOVE AND THE NOT-FOR-MARRYING MAN Love stories take many forms. Here – electric, understated, unmistakeable and timeless – the erotic connection is between Ben Batt's Geor…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 01:06PM[SHARE]MA'AM , THE MINION AND THE MACHO MAN "I never boasted an education. I learned tricks" says Princess Margaret, bitterly, at a late point in Richard Stirling's interesting but fr…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 09:03AM[SHARE]SIN OR SYMPTOM? A HUMAN TURNED TO A HORROR Last time I encountered a monologue written for a paedophile abuser, it was by Alan Bennett in a remarkable – and I think unrep…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 10:48AM[SHARE]FAIRY DUST AND PHYSICAL COMEDY I am happy to say that in the second act there is some inappropriate sexual harassment. By garishly clad fairies, deploying weaponized soprano trills an…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 07:08AM[SHARE]A CITY'S MEMORY Two girls on the Downs in 1940 giggle over a spot of rabbit-poaching on Lady Cooper's land. A roar, Junkers overhead. Figures emerge from smoke and darkness as a chant…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 11:25AM[SHARE]A WATCHFUL SORROW There are some evenings when, as the cast take their bow with that half-relaxed half-smile, you are shocked: you feel you have not been watching a performance…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 06:08AM[SHARE]CELEBRATION FOR A CITY Right place, right time, a last flurry of fireworks by the Humber. The hottest of young playwrights, James Graham, lovingly teases the city where he was a stude…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 04:47AM[SHARE]BANKERS AS LIBERATORSÂ The first recitative line in this one-act musical, as the little band sounds curfew, is chilling: a Town Crier from the 1760's : "Jews and aliens of F…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 12:36PM[SHARE]YOU HAVE TO LAUGH OR YOU WOULD WEEP.. The most arresting new character I've met this year is the magnificent Hayley Atwell as Jenny; star of a New York private equity investmen…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 05:39PM[SHARE]AVE HYTNER IMPERATOR! Â Â THE BRIDGE AS ARENA Before the start, singing along with Eye of the Tiger in the melée and enjoying the red flags, baseball hats and beercans,Â…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 08:47AM[SHARE]AVE HYTNER IMPERATOR! Â Â THE BRIDGE AS ARENA Before the start, singing along with Eye of the Tiger in the melée and enjoying the red flags, baseball hats and beercans,Â…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 07:50PM[SHARE]TWO QUEENS, TWO FATES Who shall be whom? In Robert Icke's arresting adaptation of Schiller's play, the scene opens with a sober-suited group of men watching two women in identical bla…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 08:06PM[SHARE]
