Friday, March 8, 2024
PLANT FOOD PEOPLE FROM THE PAST     I missed this first time round, due to the babysitting years, so it was grand to catch up. It's a 1980's revival, a spoof on 19…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 06:15AMThursday, March 7, 2024
A MAVERICK MINISTER     There's another play to be written about Aneurin Bevan, stubborn founder of the National Health Service: perhaps a more contentious one, or a fant…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 06:44AMWednesday, March 6, 2024
ONCE BRITTEN TWICE SHY?   The late David Hemmings, one of Britten's mentored, worshipped boy sopranos, was unforgettable aged 12 as the original MIles in the composer's terrif…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 05:45PMTHE WINDRUSH WARRIORS    Moses' crowded bedsit is where the new ones turn up off the boat train, wanting to know how to do London; he can tell them names like Clapham…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 11:49AMMonday, March 4, 2024
GUEST REVIEWER AND OPERABUFF DEAN THOMPSON LOVES ENO'S LATEST Ingenious " Dazzling " Hilarious! If you haven't seen The Magic Flute before, then this is the one to see; if you have see…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 02:46AMFriday, March 1, 2024
CORONATION, COMMISSION, COLLABORATION       You need not be a selfish pig to be an artist of genius, but there's no question that it often helps. Occurs, anywa…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 04:10AMThursday, February 29, 2024
AN ATTIC WARNING    Fasten your seat belts for a bracingly odd German play by Marius von Mayenburg; hold on tight as it veers in a switchback weirdness, which I for one en…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 04:47PMWednesday, February 28, 2024
THEY SHALL NOT PASS   Given the current swell of antisemitism there was a heartstopping moment from Jez Unwin as Yitzhak Scheinberg, patriarch of a hardworking East End Jewish fam…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 03:26PM1948 AND ALL THAT   Right now, the birth of the NHS in 1948 is more than appropriate to write about (there's another play about Nye Bevan next week). For as the most jaded doctor …
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 04:16AMTuesday, February 20, 2024
WANNA BE IN MOVIES? REALLY? BRRRR! We open in a chilly Suffolk cottage in the rain (IÂ am tonight probably the only person here to have come direct from a chilly Suffolk cottage, in rain.…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 05:31AMFriday, February 16, 2024
TENTACLES STRETCHING INTO PAST AND FUTURE   Electricity is coming to the village but the elderly Randolphs wont bother, preferring the paraffin lamplight of their forebears. …
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 02:46PMThursday, February 15, 2024
WHEN THE BOOMERS WERE ROCKIN' ALL OVER THE WORLD... Â Â "We were there!" cry the cast of John O'Farrell's jukebox tribute to the 1985 Live Aid concert. Memories undimmed nearly forty y…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 06:14PMBy Libby Purves
Our very own theatreCat Libby Purves reviews A Midsummer Night's Dream presented by the RSC at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford Upon Avon.
This post REVIEW: A Midsumm…
SOURCE: britishtheatre.com at 04:30AMWednesday, February 14, 2024
FAIRYTALE AS FESTIVAL    "The lunatic, the lover and the poet" are all served in any Midsummer Night's dream.  Here the first two get most traction, the poetry least (…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 03:24AMMonday, February 12, 2024
   LYRICAL, FARCICAL, PERFECT Figaro, rascally wigmaker and foam-flinging wet-shaver, is basically the first rapper, isnt he? Staccato eloquence at speed, braggart confidence i…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 07:50PMWednesday, February 7, 2024
 AMERICAN DREAMS IN FADING BLACKPOOL   Suddenly within a fortnight come two very classy new plays, funny and thoughtful and moving beyond the ordinary. Moreover, in a tiny rev…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 07:11PMSunday, February 4, 2024
By Libby Purves
Our very own theatreCat Libby Purves reviews Bronco Billy, a new musical at the Charing Cross Theatre.
This post REVIEW: Bronco Billy, Charing Cross Theatre âœâœâœ�…
SOURCE: britishtheatre.com at 11:59PMFriday, February 2, 2024
THAT OL'TIME WESTERN DREAM OF 1979 I have a weakness for this little theatre under the arches and its Players' Bar. Honouring a music-hall history, and with some of the cheapest stal…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 09:10AMThursday, February 1, 2024
SMALL PEOPLE,  BIG PLAY      A hot summer wedding-day. The bride Sylvia is a bag of nerves, big sister Hazel competently combing and marshalling her teenage…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 05:07AMThursday, January 25, 2024
UNFROGGETTABLE MOMENTS IN THE UNDERWORLD   Aitor Basauri does not need to be framed in a 20ft-high giant puppet frog in order to be funny, but blissful overkill is part of the ple…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 04:54AMWednesday, January 24, 2024
A DANCE AROUND AUSTEN'S LEGACY The book is known and loved enough: Jane Austen's first full novel, written with satirical youthful wit but long laid aside unpublished. It gleefully shows…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 05:45PMTuesday, January 23, 2024
LEST ANYONE FORGET..   Storytime! Before a tangled treescape Samantha Spiro sits with a book on her lap.  Across the simple stage a few notes from Gemma Rosefield's 'cello…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 06:31PMWednesday, January 17, 2024
BORDERS AND BRUTALITIES, Maybe I shouldnt review what is essentially physical-theatre. I have no dance-cred, and I was pleased to be warned years ago by the great Benedict Nightingale, when …
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 12:15PMTuesday, January 16, 2024
WAR'S LONG SHADOW       I have a taste for "Forgotten" plays of well-made realism, illustrating how it actually felt to live in Britain through now-distant…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 03:24AMFriday, January 12, 2024
BEFORE THE SALEM TERROR    This week, to little acclaim, the Ambassadors opened Tbe Enfield Haunting, a play centred on the spooky hysteria of troubled teenage girls..…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 07:48AMWednesday, January 10, 2024
GRIEF, CLASS, AND THINGS THAT GO BUMP IN THE NIGHT Â Â Â Â Â Press night having moved about and gone incommunicado, this is from when I bought a preview ticket at Richmond..sa…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 06:03PMThursday, December 21, 2023
JAPAN MEETS THE NOISY WEST     This is exquisite, and not only in Paul Farnsworth's dreamy set and Ayako Maeda's costumes, from peasant fishermen to Shogun magnificence. T…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 04:56AMWednesday, December 20, 2023
BRAINS AND HOW TO MAKE THEM USEFUL    Clearly it is the mission of Hampstead Downstairs to broaden our education, no bad ambition. Not long ago I learned a lot about the l…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 05:45PMWednesday, December 13, 2023
A BLAST FROM THE PAST TO INSPIRE OR IRRITATE Â Â Â By the interval I was mournfully unconvinced that there was any point at all in reviving Tom Stoppard's 17-year-old play , about C…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 06:35AMTuesday, December 12, 2023
 CHICKEN SOUP FOR THE SPIRIT   Can this really be the first Jewish pantomime? Oy vay, surely this culture with its musical genius, ironic jokes , family warmth,  …
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 06:29PMANOTHER KIND OF INQUIRYÂ Â I suppose we will have to wait a few years for the dust to settle and James Graham to write a nuanced play about the Boris-Covid-Tory-pocalypse. Meanwhile th…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 03:08AM 
