A FERTILE DESPAIR This is two hours of treasure. Barry Humphries of course always was one, in all his characters, and this time he puts on “the most subtle and intricate disguise�…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 03:32AMA CLASSIC OF POWER, PUZZLEMENT AND A DIFFICULT WOMAN Sometimes less is more and understatement gives a show its sharpest edge. Which is not to suggest, perish the thought…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 04:33AMBEYOND THE JOKES, A WHIFF OF SULPHUR… Danny Robins’ funny, credible, sharp-tongued play pivots round four figures of central cultural importance to modern Britain: th…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 07:12AMRATHER LATE BUT WORTH IT….A FERTILE ARGUMENT Forty years ago as a Today reporter I helped cover the first IVF baby , Louise Brown. A Scottish cardinal told me that it was sinf…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 08:42AMDRIPS ‘N DRUGS ‘N ROCK ‘N ROLL… Alan Bennett may fear he is a national teddy bear these days, but the crafty old bugger still has a gnarled finger on the nation’s t…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 06:19PMA TREE, A TEENAGER, A FAMILY TRAGEDY This is billed for ten years old or more, and its protagonist is a boy of thirteen. But warned: this Old Vic young adult summer spe…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 03:11AMMARIA MARTEN STRIDES AGAIN: A WOMAN’S STORY Founding this touring company 36 years ago, Ivan Cutting swore a great oath that one local story they wouldn’t do was …
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 07:42AMFLUENT, FASCINATING, FUN. FIVE! This show has no right to be so much fun. Over three hours, two intervals, three middle-aged blokes in black suits in a revolving glass E…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 08:37AMSTRIDING OUT OF THE FRAME : A KICK-ASS HEROINE OF THEATRE Theatre owes a lot to Joan Littlewood: daughter of East End larkiness , music-hall jangle and tough 1930’s socialism; ideal…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 05:04AMOH WHAT A TREAT… OI! The sun has got his hat on, England’s in the semi-final under a chap with a proper waistcoat, and Noel Gay’s 1937 musical is a great big,…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 09:19AMCHARLOTTE VALORI FINDS SAND, SEA AND SERIOUSNESS AT BUXTON On his way home from victory at Troy, Cretan king Idomeneo’s ship is caught in a dreadful storm. In desperation, he vows to Neptu…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 07:22PMCHARLOTTE VALORI UNCOVERS FORGOTTEN INCA GOLD WITH VERDI IN BUXTON Verdi’s little-known opera about Peruvian Incas and Spanish conquistadors, Alzira, has finally received its UK premiere a…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 07:35PMA REVIVAL CRASHING WITH NEW LIFE AND ANCIENT DARKNESS A heatwave in festival season, everyone’s muzzy yearning for greenwood misrule: it’s perfect timing for the dangerous, …
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 09:42AMCRITIC AND HELLRAISER LUKE JONES WINCES AND LAUGHS … This is as violent as anything I’ve seen on the stage. And I’m including in this survey that Titus Andronicus at the Glo…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 05:42AMA RISOTTO OF RESENTMENTS In some plays, you reach the interval not exactly dissatisfied but wondering “where is this going next? How will it knit up the ends.? So many …
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 07:21AMMICHAEL ADAIR SHUDDERS AT THE HARD OLD PATRIARCHY… ‘These modern neurotic women, doctor. What are we going to do with them?’ says one exasperated male character to another.…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 09:02AMSTRINDBERG MEETS STENHAM, BIRD MEETS BLENDER We’re in a Hampstead mansion. The daughter of the house is whooping it up at her birthday party, a deafening, purple-lit rave where tigh…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 06:28PMTHE RUMBUSTIOUS AFFAIR OF THE CLOGS IN THE NIGHT TIME Barrie Rutter and the Globe are made for each other:. Fresh out of his storming leadership (and frequent personal performa…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 12:38PMA WRITER, A MOTHER, A LIFE The elegant new Bridge continues to demonstrate – firmly — that it is uniquely versatile. After one traditional tragicomedy (Young Marx) we had a sw…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 03:32AMLUKE JONES REVELS IN VIOLENCE, CHILL, NIGHTMARE..AND GREAT DIALOGUE Orlando Bloom – denim, cowboy hat, slicked back hair, twinkling grimace – is as chilled out as a man …
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 07:59AMA TAPESTRY OF HOPE Lady Anne Tree was the Duke of Devonshire’s daughter, sister in law of Kathleen Kennedy and Debo Mitford: grand as they come. Kept from…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 01:28PMTHE EDUCATION JUNGLE A late catch-up for this short tour from Theatre Royal York: but blimey, well worth it. sA drawing-room drama of manners with deep, tangled universall…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 05:53AMSORROW AND SPLENDOUR IN WORDS THAT SING The first act of Brian Friel’s great play ends with a shout of “bloody, bloody, bloody marvellous!”. And so it bloody well is, thi…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 04:03AMLUKE JONES FALLS FOR TINKERBELL… Peter Pan has now flown into every medium possible. He is a play, novel, pantomime, musical, television programme, cartoon and a Kate Bush single. This…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 04:21AMMULTINATIONAL MENACE It is always a dilemma, for those of us who despise star-ratings as a measuring device, when a 90 minute play seems set fair to earn three, or three-and-a-bit, tr…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 04:50PMTHE NEW ERA BEGINS… Here’s a vulnerable Hamlet: a lonely lad in proper tearful grief and disappointment at his mother’s remarriage. A Hamlet who, in feigning madnes…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 08:01AMBOW, BOW! THEY’RE ON THE ROAD AGAIN.. It must be nearly five years since Sasha Regan’s all-male Iolanthe at Wiltons’ caused me to break a lifelong resistance and enjo…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 08:28AMSCHLOCK-HORRORWITZ AND HURRAH FOR THE SKELETON Gotta love the buccaneering quality of west end theatres: the Small Faces musical at the little Ambassadors off Cambridge Cir…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 05:42AMTHE SHINE AND THE TERROR It is no bad thing to have your stage hero effectively co-designing the set. Christopher Oram’s recreation of Mark Rothko’s 1950’s studio is a bl…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 05:18PMCLEAR YOUNG VOICES FROM A DISTANT PAST Three children in the 1540’s play in a hay-barn, built fragrant and real in the tiny theatre. One has found a pilgrim medal…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 07:55AMROUGH, RURAL, A NEGLECTED ALBION An immense intrusive pipe bisects the stage, a rusty oil tank below it with part of a tractor one side and a cheerless Victorian brick farmhous…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 06:39PM
