All stories by Ds on BroadwayStars

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

What to see this week in the UK by Andrew Pulver, Michael Cragg, John Fordham, Andrew Clements, Jonathan Jones, Miriam Gillinson and Lyndsey Winship

From High Life to Joy for Ever, here’s our pick of the best films, concerts, exhibitions, theatre and dance over the next seven days Continue reading...

SOURCE: The Guardian at 08:36AM
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

What to see this week in the UK by Andrew Pulver, Phil Harrison, John Fordham, Andrew Clements, Jonathan Jones, Miriam Gillinson and Lyndsey Winship

From Vox Lux to Stanley Kubrick, here’s our pick of the best films, concerts, exhibitions, theatre and dance over the next seven days Continue reading...

SOURCE: The Guardian at 11:36AM

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

THIS IS MY FAMILY Minerva, Chichester by Libby Purves and Friends

ANOTHER KIND OF LOVE SONG              This is gorgeous.  Funny,  truthful, wise,  and bravely original in form.   Anyone with a a family – past, present, remembered, or merely …

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 04:32AM
Friday, April 26, 2019

What to see this week in the UK by Andrew Pulver,phil Harrison, John Fordham, Andrew Clements, Jonathan Jones,miriam Gillinson and Lyndsey Winship

From Avengers: Endgame to Mary Quant, here’s our pick of the best films, concerts, exhibitions, theatre and dance over the next seven days Continue reading...

SOURCE: The Guardian at 04:00AM
Thursday, April 25, 2019

OTHER PEOPLE’S MONEY              Southwark Playhouse, SE1 by Libby Purves and Friends

THE WORLD DONALD GREW UP IN…           It’s a long transverse stage:  at one end  at a scruffy crowded steel desk sits Jorgy, Michael Brandon exuding down-home amiability as the l…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 04:44AM
Tuesday, April 23, 2019

ALL MY SONS                   Old Vic, SE1 by Libby Purves and Friends

GUILT, GRIEF  AND PITY     It is almost uncanny how an Arthur Miller play, treated respectfully, can in the most wrenchingly extreme story still catch the common rhythms and tides of fami…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 08:28PM
Monday, April 22, 2019

SWEET CHARITY Donmar WC1 by Libby Purves and Friends

(Published in Daily Mail on Friday, one must moonlight to support this website’s unfunded free existence –   but here it is  for theatrecat regulars..)          The minute you wal…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 03:35AM
Friday, April 19, 2019

What to see this week in the UK by Andrew Pulver, Phil Harrison, John Fordham, Andrew Clements, Jonathan Jones, Miriam Gillinson and Lyndsey Winship

From Loro to Stealing Sheep, here’s our pick of the best films, concerts, exhibitions, theatre and dance over the next seven days Continue reading...

SOURCE: The Guardian at 04:00AM
Wednesday, April 17, 2019

THREE SISTERS Almeida, N1 by Libby Purves and Friends

DOWNBEAT, DOWNCAST         Some years ago, leaving a particularly slow and uninspiring Chekhov performance in Yorkshire (never mind which play, spare the blushes)   I heard a weary man …

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 03:56AM
Tuesday, April 16, 2019

Notre Dame and the culture it inspired – from Matisse to the Muppets by Oliver Wainwright, Stuart Jeffries, Peter Bradshaw, Jonathan Jones, Fiona Maddocks, Michael Coveney and Keza Macdonald

It mesmerised Proust, terrified Homer Simpson and gave us the Hunchback – Guardian critics celebrate Paris’s gothic masterpiece at the heart of the modern imagination As Notre Dame Cathe…

SOURCE: The Guardian at 11:13AM
Sunday, April 14, 2019

INK FESTIVAL – Halesworth Cut – envoi 2019 by Libby Purves and Friends

REFLECTIONS ON A RICH SEA OF INK…        I saw 22 plays in two days,  but it was hardly half a bite of what was on offer.   In three days there were  40 , each performed several ……

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 05:19PM
Friday, April 12, 2019

What to see this week in the UK by Damon Wise, Phil Harrison, John Fordham, Andrew Clements, Jonathan Jones, Miriam Gillinson and Lyndsey Winship

From Mid90s to Dave, here’s our pick of the best films, concerts, exhibitions, theatre and dance over the next seven days Continue reading...

SOURCE: The Guardian at 04:00AM
Thursday, April 11, 2019

HOTEL PARADISO          On tour pre Edinburgh Fringe by Libby Purves and Friends

ANOTHER KIND OF HOUR      Staggering back from holiday, I sentimentally booked this at the New Wolsey in Ipswich because 2019 is the 50th anniversary of my unremarkable student performanc…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 11:46AM

WHERE IS PETER RABBIT?         Theatre Royal, Haymarket SW1 by Libby Purves and Friends

BEATRIX BEATS BREXIT WITH TOP BEAK-WORK      The Haymarket these spring mornings is dense with toddlers and their attendants (I’d say  by the look of it  20% parents, 50%  grandparen…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 07:54AM
Wednesday, April 10, 2019

IN THE WILLOWS            Oxford Playhouse & touring by Libby Purves and Friends

A FRESH WIND BLOWING THROUGH AN OLD TALE         Down on the Riverbank Club,  teen DJ Rattie is bangin’ it behind the deck,  telling the shy diffident Mole   “There is nothing–…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 01:29PM
Friday, April 5, 2019

Kunene and the King. Swan, Stratford upon Avon by Libby Purves and Friends

THE OLDEST HAVE BORNE MOST…   Jack is an ageing, terminally ill, scruffy, alcoholic remnant of an actor, with a grubby cardigan and Falstaff gut. He is muttering lines from King Lear in h…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 09:23AM
Wednesday, April 3, 2019

THE TIDE JETTY              Eastern Angles, touring by Libby Purves and Friends

SECRETS AND MEMORIES IN A WASTE OF WATERS         You can’t fault the atmosphere:   Jasmine Swan’s set takes you straight to the wide skies and muddy, reedy mystery of  Breydon Wat…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 10:26AM
Saturday, March 30, 2019

ADMISSIONS                  Trafalgar Studios , SW1 by Libby Purves and Friends

CRACKS IN THE LIBERAL VENEER       I adored the energy, cleverness and cheek of BAD JEWS so much I went twice, as the pitiless author  set his characters kicking, twisting, protesting an…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 03:53AM

MARY’S BABIES            Jermyn St Theatre, SW1 by Libby Purves and Friends

A COSY NIGHTMARE LEGACY OF THE 1930’S     From the late 1930’s for nearly forty years,  Mary Barton and her husband Berthold Wiesner ran a pioneering fertility clinic: they were among…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 03:50AM
Friday, March 29, 2019

DOWNSTATE Dorfman, SE1 by Libby Purves and Friends

BRILLIANT, NECESSARY,   QUESTIONING       If we accept that people are widely diverse,  we have to accept that paedophiles are too.   Not all the same identi-monster.    Moreover,�…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 11:05AM
Thursday, March 28, 2019

THE REMAINS OF THE DAY              Theatre Royal , Bury & touring by Libby Purves and Friends

WHAT THE BUTLER CAME TO KNOW…   From its premiere at the Royal & Derngate and on the first leg of its tour,  here is the stage version of Kazuo Ishiguro’s Booker-winning novel.  I…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 01:45PM
Monday, March 25, 2019

THE PHLEBOTOMIST                 Hampstead Theatre, NW1 by Libby Purves and Friends

WRITTEN IN THE BLOOD   What great timing!  Just as the worried-well Health Secretary gets rubbished for taking a commercial DNA test,  announcing that it has “saved his life” because …

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 06:50PM
Sunday, March 24, 2019

AIN’T MISBEHAVIN’         Mercury, Colchester then Southwark by Libby Purves and Friends

I’M GONNA SIT RIGHT DOWN AND WRITE MYSELF A REVIEW…   So dress up sassy, shake your chassis, get some mesh on your flesh like the ladies who sing with the band. Sell your vocals to the …

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 02:01PM

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