A RIOTOUS RUSSIAN SATIRE, FOR ALL TIMES The local governor and councillors are posing for a photograph, more than satisfied with themselves and their genteelly corrupt side-h…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 02:05AMMODERN ECHOES OF A DYING FALL Years ago I came out of a dullish production in Yorkshire of Chekhov’s last play, set very traditionally with samovar, parasols and big hats. A …
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 02:48AMA BOY BETRAYED Connor was 18 when he drowned in the bath with an epileptic seizure. It needn’t have happened. He was under slipshod care, away from the family who loved him, in an NHS �…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 04:47AMA FEARFUL FUTURE I am wary of futurist dystopias, but this is a real treat: intelligent sci-fi with serious thrills. As it opens, we are the 2050 audience at the celebration of ten…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 03:35AMBy Libby Purves Our very own theatreCat Libby Purves reviews Mike Poulton's The Other Boleyn Girl based on the novel by Philippa Gregory now playing at the Chichester Festival Theatre. This …
SOURCE: britishtheatre.com at 05:19AMTHE COURT AND THE BEDCHAMBER Theatre will never tire of the Tudors, nor should it. From every new angle they offer a dramatic gift which never stops giving. Here’s 1534, and…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 10:10AMMEN BEHAVING RIDICULOUSLY The lord of Navarre and three nobles have resolved to retreat and study for three years, eschewing female company: so even the princess suing for land has to be…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 02:47AMMUD, MARSH, MONEY Now here’s a bracing new way to do Dickens: avoid sets full of Victoriana by keeping the stage pretty much empty beneath a set of uneasily moving lighting-bars …
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 05:20AMREFLECTIONS ON A FAT KNIGHT Due to train disruption – speak not of overhead wires and wind – I had to bail out at the interval, from Robert Icke’s epic three and a half hour modern…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 06:47AMWHY HALESWORTH MATTERS TO THE NATIONAL DRAMATIC ECOSYSTEM The other day I did an overview-preview from some dress rehearsals at the INK short play festival in Suffolk (scroll below), …
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 07:51AMCROOKBACK DICK REIMAGINED Saving Richard III from Shakespeare’s calumny seems to have a particular appeal to women: probably because around his accession in the 1480…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 08:41AMDIVING ABOUT IN A UNIQUE SHORT-PLAY FESTIVAL Join me on a parked Hoppa minibus where Henry VIII is chatting up a new Jane. She is not impressed by the Tudor-Tinder qualificat…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 05:27AMHOLINESS IN THE WHALE It pretty much had me harpooned at the words “Call me Ishmael”. As Mark Arends’ earnestly naive schoolteacher speaks the opening lines and begins…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 05:26AMWUTHERING SIBLINGS Grace Smart the designer sets the scene as we settle in with a sweet miniature moor, all harebells and heather and cloddy bits of earth. But it rises in the air …
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 06:55PMTHE GAME’S AFOOT. EVENTUALLY. Nick Lane’s adaptation of Conan Doyle’s late, broodingly complicated novel has met many huzzahs from Sherlock Holmes fans, previously here, on tour and …
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 05:56AMDOSTOYEVSKY IN DALTON “These days” says the man on the empty stage, “people are precious to me, even when they insult me. I have woken up”. His stark features do no…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 02:17PMCAMPUS RITES AND WRONGS Sometimes, I do like a stage set you could cosily move right into. Paul Farnsworth’s is a nice evocation of a Harvard professor’s study: shelves and panelling…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 02:22PMHOMAGE TO THE FIRST CELEBRITY DIVA Last time theatre’s pre-Victorian glory days – silk breeches, rowdy audiences and Garrickian hamming – were celebrated on this stage w…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 07:35AMHOW TO WASTE A STELLAR CAST Sheridan Smith is not only a box-office draw but a rare and genuine talent: two decades a star on screen and stage, musicals and drama: phenomena…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 04:27AMMAGIC . ALWAYS BETTER WHEN DISASTROUS. God bless Mischief Theatre. Eleven years ago this coming May I saw THE PLAY THAT GOES WRONG in the tiny downstairs space at Trafalgar S…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 04:01PMKIDS WITH A KICK IN THEM There’s been an interlockof themes in theatre lately: DEAR ENGLAND at the NT displaying Gareth Southgate’s work in fostering the openness and emotiona…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 07:31AMHOPE, HEART, HARDSHIP Brian Friel’s 1979 remarkable play stands on its own, offering a kind of depressive beauty: beneath the story of one ramshackle troubled couple it is a meditatio…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 06:44AMRO$$INI BONANZA! Guest reviewer Dean Thompson finds much in a small space… Opera lovers or new to opera will love this! So, get on your horse and gallop over to see Charles Court Opera…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 06:23AMA CELLULOID INVASION This was at first a startling choice: Eastern Angles’ tradition is generally, as it heroically tours night-by-night across the eastern counties, to programme…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 01:52PMBOARDROOM BEASTS This may break all records for the smartest costumes ever at the Southwark’s smallest space: six irreproachable business suits, including two sets of tweed-chic fema…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 06:26AMA FRESH CAST, ONE YEAR ON Can it really be a whole year since, with theatre still gallantly recovering from Covid, Nicholas Hytner rolled the dice and opted to offer us some razzle dazzle?…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 08:40AMPLANT 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 1960’s sci…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 06:15AMA 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 fantasy in w…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 06:44AMONCE 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 terrifying…
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 -“not C…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 11:49AMGUEST 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…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 02:46AM
