All stories by Libby Purves on BroadwayStars

Wednesday, August 12, 2015

THE MAIDS The Space at Surgeon’s Hall, Edinburgh by Libby Purves

GENET GENIUS? Hmmmm From time to time, the seeker for cultural enlightenment must deliberately book in to the works of some author he or she can’t see the point of. For some its B…

SOURCE: mytheatremates.com at 03:10AM
Tuesday, August 11, 2015

SWALLOW Traverse, Edinburgh by Libby Purves

ENJOY BEING A GIRL? UM, NOT REALLY… Stef Smith’s new play – after her acclaimed debut with ROADKILL – is  skilfully written, elegantly performed, and curiously annoying…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 07:29AM
Monday, August 10, 2015

ADA Bedlam, Edinburgh by Libby Purves

THE COMPUTER COUNTESS  It’s a topical, Tim-Hunt-tastic moment to celebrate one of the forgotten women of science, and the Edinburgh University Theatre companyhave hit on a cracking good s…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 01:15PM

AN OAK TREE Traverse, Edinburgh by Libby Purves

GRIEF, ILLUSION, PLAY… You can’t label this extraordinary two-hander by Tim Crouch as “experimental” theatre, even though it uses a different – wholly unprepare…

SOURCE: mytheatremates.com at 04:41AM
Sunday, August 9, 2015

JURASSIC PARK Assembly Roxy, Edinburgh by Libby Purves

DINOSAUR-TING OUT FAMILY LIFE.. A school backpack suddenly yawns like the jaws if a Tyrannosaurus Rex, devouring an actor’s head. A toy helicopter overflies three herding brontosauri. …

SOURCE: mytheatremates.com at 01:01PM
Saturday, August 8, 2015

TINA C: HERSTORY Underbelly Potterow Topside , Edinburgh by Libby Purves

THE RHINESTONE COWGIRL RIDES AGAIN I first saw this cabaret-theatre character here in 2002, drawn by curiosity because the theme was “Tina C’s Twin Towers Tribute”. Under a…

SOURCE: mytheatremates.com at 05:49PM

IMPOSSIBLE Pleasance QueenDome, Edinburgh by Libby Purves

HOLMES AND HOKUM, FRIENDSHIP AND GRIEF Good to start the Fringe-blitz with a winner . (Not that it was the first one that hit me as I lurched off the Caledonian Sleeper, but more of that lat…

SOURCE: mytheatremates.com at 08:42AM
Friday, August 7, 2015

LETTER TO LARRY Jermyn Street Theatre , SW1 by Libby Purves

A LOST LADY RETURNS, SAD AND BEGUILING Theatre loves to eat its own history, and fair enough: if you want intensity, volatile emotion, hope and heartbreak and impossible yet irresistible cha…

SOURCE: mytheatremates.com at 10:16AM
Thursday, August 6, 2015

THREE LITTLE PIGS Palace Theatre, W1 by Libby Purves

A PIG TALE TROTS ITS STUFF        Strike day in a hot pedestrian London, and a surreal opening matinee for Stiles and Drew’s new family musical (fresh from the…

SOURCE: mytheatremates.com at 12:44PM
Tuesday, August 4, 2015

SPLENDOUR Donmar WC2 by Libby Purves

BEHIND THE PALACE WALLS:  A CHILLING MODERNITY Peter McKintosh designs cold, skilful dictator chic: above a shining marble floor, the majestic Mittel-Europa chandelier dims to a blood-r…

SOURCE: mytheatremates.com at 05:19PM
Monday, August 3, 2015

DEAR LUPIN Apollo, W1 by Libby Purves

A FATHER AND A SON,  WHEN THE TIMES WERE A-CHANGING… Old army jokes get readopted by every generation. I suspect that one of the most slyly placed laughs in this ultimately charming e…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 07:12PM
Saturday, August 1, 2015

BAKKHAI, Almeida, N1 by Libby Purves

GUEST REVIEWER CHARLOTTE VALORI GOES HAPPILY DEMENTED AT THE ALMEIDA “Cleverness is not wisdom,” warn the Maenad chorus, as king Pentheus determinedly resists the rise of new god…

SOURCE: mytheatremates.com at 08:11AM
Wednesday, July 29, 2015

THREE DAYS IN THE COUNTRY, National Theatre, SE1 by Libby Purves

GUEST REVIEWER CHARLOTTE VALORI GLIMPSES A RUSSIAN SUMMER WITH PATRICK MARBER Patrick Marber has taken Turgenev’s A Month in the Country and strengthened it in all directions, rather like…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 05:17AM
Thursday, July 23, 2015

SEVEN BRIDES FOR SEVEN BROTHERS Open Air Theatre, Regent’s Park W1 by Libby Purves

GLORIOUS BRIDES AND BROTHERS…  LP NIPS BACK  MID-HOL TO CATCH THEM ALL Innocent virgins abducted from their family hearth, carried off  to wild territory by lawless bearded gunmen a…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 08:32PM
Wednesday, July 22, 2015

MACK AND MABEL – Chichester Festival Theatre by Libby Purves

This is a tale of romance and of the lure of cinema: tricky on the stage. Mack Sennet, a clownish film director, is losing his beloved star, Mabel Normand, to the dreaded, meatier features. …

SOURCE: mytheatremates.com at 05:36AM
Friday, July 17, 2015

THE GATHERED LEAVES, Park Theatre, N4 by Libby Purves

GUEST REVIEWER LUKE JONES FINDS AN EMPTY FAMILY DRAMA WITH GOOD GAGS TO KEEP IT AFLOAT After 17 years away, the grown-up daughter returns with the illegitimate child which got her thrown out…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 04:58AM
Tuesday, July 14, 2015

THE MENTALISTS, Wyndham’s Theatre, WC2H by Libby Purves

GUEST REVIEWER LUKE JONES FINDS THINGS GET MUCH BETTER AFTER THE INTERVAL The jokes bought this play some time. Richard Bean, a former standup, is hot property at the moment after a slew of …

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 05:09AM
Wednesday, July 8, 2015

THE INVISIBLE, Bush Theatre W12 by Libby Purves

GUEST REVIEWER CHARLOTTE VALORI LEARNS ABOUT LASPO*… “When I was growing up the poor were seen as unfortunates. Now they’re seen as manipulative. Grasping. Scroungers. It’s ver…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 07:49PM
Monday, July 6, 2015

ORSON’S SHADOW Southwark Playhouse, SE1 by Libby Purves

WHEN LARRY MET ORSON AND KEN AND IT DIDN’T GO WELL… Sir Larry spreads his arms wide in the rehearsal room and moans “I am a giant in chains!” His director rolls his e…

SOURCE: mytheatremates.com at 06:12PM
Saturday, July 4, 2015

THE GRUFFALO Lyric, Shaftesbury Avenue by Libby Purves

THE BIG HAIRY ONE RIDES AGAIN… Stage Hero of the week is Owen Guerin, aka The Gruffalo in the larky children’s play based on Julia Donaldson’s immortal book. On the hottest…

SOURCE: mytheatremates.com at 04:17PM
Thursday, July 2, 2015

WONDER.LAND Palace, Manchester by Libby Purves

DOWN THE RABBIT HOLE  Fifty minutes in, we got a 30ft yodelling falsetto caterpillar with flashing saucer eyes, and I cheered up. It also, as it happens, sang the central message of Damon…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 06:14PM
Wednesday, July 1, 2015

THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST Vaudeville, WC2 by Libby Purves

A HANDBAG?  A WHOLE TRUNKFUL OF TREATS The heart sinks beforehand: Oscar Wilde’s sunny comedy melodrama is too familiar: skipping from one well-worn epigram to the next, from handbag to m…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 06:14PM
Saturday, June 27, 2015

ALL THE ANGELS Wanamaker Playhouse at Shakespeare’s Globe, SE1 by Libby Purves

COMFORT YE! HANDEL AND THE FIRST MESSIAH Handel’s Messiah is a phenomenon: written in three weeks in the composer’s most disappointed phase, to this day it plays as sublimely as a chambe…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 03:11AM
Friday, June 26, 2015

THE TRIAL Young Vic SE1 by Libby Purves

GUEST REVIEWER LUKE JONES IS CONVEYED BY A DYSTOPIAN INJUSTICE The auditorium is a coliseum, with a tremendous conveyor belt slicing it in half, flappy black curtains at either end. K w…

SOURCE: mytheatremates.com at 07:09PM

THE SEAGULL OPEN AIR THEATRE Regent’s Park W1 by Libby Purves

CHEKHOV UNDER THE TREES Fortune favours the brave, and the meteorological riskiness of outdoor theatre sometimes pays handsomely. A great heron flew over, squawking doom, just as Irina screa…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 06:59AM
Wednesday, June 24, 2015

BEND IT LIKE BECKHAM Phoenix, WC2 by Libby Purves

BACK OF THE NET!   Rejoice! In the midst of Fifa’s dismal doings musical theatre makes football beautiful again. Gurinder Chadha’s and Paul Mayeda Berges’ fable, of a …

SOURCE: mytheatremates.com at 05:59PM
Sunday, June 21, 2015

The thrill of theatre at its most elemental by Libby Purves

Libby Purves: Open air theatre works brilliantly. In fact, it offers some of the most enjoyable drama of the summer

SOURCE: The Telegraph at 06:00AM
Wednesday, June 17, 2015

THE MOTHER F**KER WITH THE HAT Lyttelton, SE1 by Libby Purves

NOW HERE’S THE ONE TO SEE.  DON’T MIND THE LANGUAGE… If you worry about language, the clue’s in the title. More f’s and assholes than you can shake a reproving finger …

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 06:01PM
Tuesday, June 16, 2015
Monday, June 15, 2015

WE WANT YOU TO WATCH NT Temporary Theatre, SE1 by Libby Purves

PORN AND PHYSICALITY We’re all on the same page here, right? Online pornography is increasingly violent, graphically displaying real, abusive sexual acts devoid of tenderness. Rapist s…

SOURCE: mytheatremates.com at 06:54PM

THE HOOK Royal, Northampton by Libby Purves

UNDER THE BRIDGE, MEN UNDER PRESSURE “You gonna have a revolution”: the last words of Arthur Miller’s angry “play for the screen”, echo here with an interrogati…

SOURCE: mytheatremates.com at 02:36AM

All that Chat

2024-2025 BROADWAY SEASON
Jun 05, 2024: Home - Todd Haimes Theatre
Jul 11, 2024: Oh, Mary! - Lyceum Theatre
Jul 30, 2024: Job - Hayes Theater
Sep 12, 2024: The Roommate - Booth Theatre
Nov 14, 2024: Tammy Faye - Palace Theatre
Nov 17, 2024: Elf - Marquis Theatre
Dec 12, 2024: Cult of Love - Hayes Theater
Dec 19, 2024: Gypsy - Majestic Theatre
Mar 17, 2025: Purpose - Hayes Theater
Apr 10, 2025: Smash - Imperial Theatre