Friday, April 1, 2022
THE SHADOW OF A BEGINNING, ALABAMA 1936 Forget, for the moment, both the fame and the the arguments over Harper Lee’s classic novel: Aaron Sorkin’s stage adaptation is a free…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 07:33AMThursday, March 24, 2022
WELCOME BACK, BITING SHARP AS EVER In 2010 Bruce Norris’ play wowed the Royal Court: this is a ten-year anniversary (well, plus two years lost to Covid) so forgive me for quoting wh…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 04:01PMTHE ROUGH TOUGH BIRTH OF A CITY It is not often I resort to drawing in the notebook, but there it is: half an hour into the first part of David Hare’s play about the city planner Robe…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 07:40AMWednesday, March 23, 2022
A PLAY IS A PLAY IS A PLAY IS A WEDDING With typical wit, the doughty little Jermyn has captured an intellectual-farcical oddity from New York complete with author-director and star…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 04:51AMSaturday, March 19, 2022
BRACING, BELTING, BENIGN At the end of the evening the great diva, director and muse informs us that we too must sing. In a packed house, on the far side of a pandemic which made …
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 11:41AMThursday, March 17, 2022
LEARNING TO LIVE Sometimes judging others harshly is a relishable guilty pleasure. In Ruby Thomas’ wonderful 80-minute sequence of snapshots of family therapy, the write…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 08:17PMWednesday, March 16, 2022
NOT A FINE ROMANCE Mamet plays are Marmite plays. You can applaud Speed the Plow, adore Wag the Dog on screen, and have a pleasurable argument with the opposite sex after a particularl…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 11:49AMTuesday, March 15, 2022
LOVE AS AN UNCOURTLY CONTEST In 2009 – and again in Chichester 2018 – I missed Mike Bartlett’s mischievous, half-earnest play about a gay man wrestling with his identity (and h…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 07:59PMFriday, February 25, 2022
A VIGOROUS, HEARTSHAKING BRUSH OF OPPOSITES Two artists in a studio: the older one pale and floppily blond, languidly self-protective, drawling, preaching a cool gospel of u…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 05:30AMTuesday, February 15, 2022
AN ORDINARY TRIANGLE TWISTS INTO NIGHTMARE The French novelist-turned-playwright Florian Zeller hit the British theatre scene a few years ago with two comedies: The Lie and The …
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 10:58AMFriday, February 11, 2022
HOMAGE TO A HEALING CHAOS If – like Prince Charles – you grew up with the Goons in the background (“Ying Tong! Bluebottle! He’s fallen in da water!” etc) this will ring …
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 12:31PMFriday, January 14, 2022
MIDDLECLASS MOUNTAIN MISERIES Inspired programming here. You’d find a decent overlap in any January Venn diagram of regular Donmar audiences and people who wish they were ski-i…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 10:29AMThursday, January 13, 2022
Puppets move the heart… It was a third attempt ( like so many, it has had cancellations and suspensions), and I missed it in Sheffield 2019 through illness. So I bought any tick…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 09:14AMWednesday, January 5, 2022
SONGS FROM THE LAND There’s a lovely serendipity here. The main theatre is running PEGGY FOR YOU (till 29th) while the little downstairs space has Neil Leyshon’s rather lo…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 07:18AMFriday, December 31, 2021
PLAGUE YEAR Part 2 – 2021 Below, if you care to scroll , I chronicled the shows that met my return from chemo-then-lockdown in 2020. An enfeebled theatrical year. Today a lo…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 01:55PMThursday, December 30, 2021
PART 1: THE ONSET I set out, in this eerie Twixtmas gap, to chronicle and celebrate the return of live theatre since May 2021. And this will follow. But when I totted up the 20…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 11:49AMMonday, December 27, 2021
Amy Adams makes her West End debut, immersive dance confronts mental health and Steve Coogan’s alter ego embarks on a rare live UK tour
• Preview more cultural highlights of 2022 Continu…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:36AMSaturday, December 18, 2021
A SHARP , SERPENTINE, SUPERB PERFORMANCE Lounging in the small hours on her office couch, under a wall of posters for her many clients’ shows – both famous and forgotten �…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 05:57AMIt was a year of revivals in every sense, as venues threw open their doors again. From fresh takes on classics to blazing new talents and shows that captured the current moment, our critics …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 01:54AMFriday, December 10, 2021
A PRIMA DONNY JOINS THE FEARLESS FOUR Last year as a family we came to see the doughty quartet doing this variety show, an adult-joking non-panto to fill the fearful gap. It was th…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 11:31AMThursday, December 9, 2021
1968 AND ALL THAT James Graham’s mission might seem unfashionable: trawling 20c history and public culture, looking not for villains and heroes but for the nuances of human behaviour, …
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 06:35PMTuesday, December 7, 2021
PULLING OUT THE STOPS FOR PULLMAN First things first: this is the most wonderfully evocative, romantic and dramatic bit of set-projection you will see all year. Bob Crowley, video maes…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 07:07PMMonday, December 6, 2021
A REVIVING REVIVAL Do you need to be of a generation to remember Morecambe and Wise, to which this play is a loving tribute-cum-amiable-ripoff? Probably not. They are stamped on th…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 07:36PMFriday, December 3, 2021
ISLAND OF WONDER AND UNEASE One of the interesting, rewarding quirks in Tom Littler’s small-but-perfectly-formed Tempest is that Tam Williams doubles as Ferdinand, the ultra-vi…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 09:31AMWednesday, December 1, 2021
GLIMPSES OF ETERNITY (Review first published on D.Mail, in shorter form) This is wonderful. Sometimes a simple short performance can shake, rouse, even change you. So step a…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 06:19AMSunday, November 28, 2021
worth going again I say.. Just thought I should mention to theatrecat readers how wonderful this show it. Saw it twice before the pandemic, nipped back to a matinee a week or so back. …
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 11:34AMWednesday, November 24, 2021
2021 BRITAIN IN A STATELY STORMY NUTSHELL Just what we needed, I thought! A good old state-of-the-nation black comedy with a semi-derelict Manor in a howling storm, the sea wall abo…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 04:16AMThursday, November 18, 2021
SIX CENTURIES ON, IT’S GEOFFREY CHAUCER’S ROUND Zadie Smith humbly refers to her first play as more like “homework” than the novelist’s usual dread of a blank page. Ch…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 10:19AMA CHEKHQUERED RESPONSE Vanya and Sonia are siblings – though she is adopted – and have led dull dutiful lives in a remote country house surrounded by cherry trees and an or…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 04:23AMWednesday, November 17, 2021
ROLL UP! IT’S BACK! Ah, Christmastime! There’s nothing like a buff chap in spike-heeled patent thigh-boots somersaulting in the air to make you feel festive. Unless it�…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 05:56PMA HUMAN ZOO OF ALPHA MEN There are good plays to be written about white male privilege, and about modern capitalism and its relentless expectation of self-promotion and constant advancement …
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 05:37AM 
