Thursday, April 12, 2018
THE JOINT IS JUMPING! AGAIN… Openings are running in themed sets – three Restoration comedies coming along like No.11 buses, and now two nights running…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 04:35AMTuesday, April 10, 2018
SWOTS OR SWINDLERS, VILLAINS OR VICTIMS? Sometimes a West End transfer serves a play royally. At Chichester last year I enjoyed James Graham’s playful, thoughtfully mischievo…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 05:39PMCATHY, STILL NOT HOME AFTER FIFTY YEARS Homeless charities like to remind us of the mantra: we are all just two bad decisions away from the pavement. The trajectory of our heroine Cat…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 05:53AMMonday, April 9, 2018
SHORT, SHARP, STIMULATING The INK new writing festival (http://inkfestival.org) is a phenomenon: a space where writers of any experience or none can submit short plays (most unde…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 10:03AMFriday, April 6, 2018
This is a full period-dress production, executed immaculately but probably needing another few cuts to be unalloyed joy. The plot is labyrinthine, with a wordy torrent of finely honed wit an…
SOURCE: mytheatremates.com at 05:30AMWednesday, April 4, 2018
FROTHING OVER WITH FEMALE HILARITY A pre-curtain ensemble of one harpsichord and a quartet of periwigged lady saxophonists, playing Mozart with a touch of oompah, is always a…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 07:48PMSaturday, March 24, 2018
IT’S THAT SHOW AGAIN, AND VERY WELCOME TOO It’s WW2 themed. Gas masks, posters, programmes in an ARP fire-bucket and rude songs to cheer the troops on leave and show Hitler that B…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 10:02AMThursday, March 22, 2018
HARD HOMECOMINGS FOR THE DOGS OF WAR Boots, boots, boots, boots: stamping out the immemorial rhythm of army discipline, nineteen men and women move as one, expressionless, freed for a…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 04:21PMA SOLO REFLECTION ON PUBERTY AND AFTER. Naomi Sheldon’s solo, semi-autobiographical hour comes from Edinburgh crowned with plaudits, though cunningly in the programme she doe…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 08:32AMFOR ONCE IN A LIFETIME THE DEAR MENIER DOES NOT MAKE GUEST REVIEWER LUKE JONES HAPPY. NOT HAPPY AT ALL. EXCEPT AT THE PROJECTIONS. Two prisoners are locked in an Argentinia…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 07:35AMTuesday, March 20, 2018
IT’S THAT MAN AGAIN… It is awkward that two major new productions of the Scottish Play, by two determinedly auteurish directors, open in the same month. Rufus Norris’ bleak …
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 07:16PMGUEST CRITIC JENNIFER-JANE BENJAMIN FINDS WHAT MATTERS Lights up. A confederate statue. A blackout. And it disappears. It’s November 1963 and we’re in Lake Charles, Louisiana. JFK…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 12:43PMSunday, March 18, 2018
SILENT, SIGNIFICANT CREATURES The candlelit Wanamaker has proved its worth as a music-room, notably with All The Angels and the divine Farinelli. This takes it further with the first …
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 12:13PMFriday, March 16, 2018
DANGEROUS DAYS AND COURAGEOUS SCIENCE This terrific meteorological thriller, set in the crucial days before D-Day, is written by – and stars – David Haig. In 2014…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 07:52AMWednesday, March 14, 2018
FREE HANKY WITH EVERY PROGRAMME (honest..!) Ten years ago Emma Rice and her Kneehigh group brought this adaptation of Noel Coward’s heartrending film to the stage – to a c…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 10:15AMTuesday, March 13, 2018
A DARK SEASIDE PARABLE If there is one stumbling block for lovers of Graham Greene’s darkly thrilling gangster novel, it is the elegance of Gloria Onitiri. She is Ida; and Gr…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 06:40AMSaturday, March 10, 2018
DICKENS EXCEEDING EXPECTATIONS Putting great literary masterpieces onstage is an erratic business. Within the same week we see the Artistic Director of the National Theatre b…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 08:41AMThursday, March 8, 2018
SACRED AND PROFANE LOVE Is love a Gothic Cathedral, a yearning for a permanent, holy, respectful connection to the best in our nature? Or is it lust and fun, animal attraction,…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 02:19PMWednesday, March 7, 2018
THE SCOTTISH PLAY, DARK AND DANK You don’t expect robes and battlements these days. This is a shaven-head-and-machete Macbeth, its theme an indeterminate, timeless squalor: p…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 05:32PMTuesday, March 6, 2018
LOVE AND THE NOT-FOR-MARRYING MAN Love stories take many forms. Here – electric, understated, unmistakeable and timeless – the erotic connection is between Ben Batt’s Ge…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 01:06PMSaturday, March 3, 2018
MA’AM , THE MINION AND THE MACHO MAN “I never boasted an education. I learned tricks” says Princess Margaret, bitterly, at a late point in Richard Stirling’s interestin…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 09:03AMFriday, March 2, 2018
SIN OR SYMPTOM? A HUMAN TURNED TO A HORROR Last time I encountered a monologue written for a paedophile abuser, it was by Alan Bennett in a remarkable – and I think unrep…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 10:48AMThursday, March 1, 2018
FAIRY DUST AND PHYSICAL COMEDY I am happy to say that in the second act there is some inappropriate sexual harassment. By garishly clad fairies, deploying weaponized soprano trills an…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 07:08AMThursday, February 15, 2018
A CITY’S MEMORY Two girls on the Downs in 1940 giggle over a spot of rabbit-poaching on Lady Cooper’s land. A roar, Junkers overhead. Figures emerge from smoke and darkness as a c…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 11:25AMThursday, February 8, 2018
A WATCHFUL SORROW There are some evenings when, as the cast take their bow with that half-relaxed half-smile, you are shocked: you feel you have not been watching a performance…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 06:08AMWednesday, February 7, 2018
CELEBRATION FOR A CITY Right place, right time, a last flurry of fireworks by the Humber. The hottest of young playwrights, James Graham, lovingly teases the city where he was a stude…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 04:47AMSaturday, February 3, 2018
BANKERS AS LIBERATORS The first recitative line in this one-act musical, as the little band sounds curfew, is chilling: a Town Crier from the 1760’s : “Jews and aliens of…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 12:36PMThursday, February 1, 2018
YOU HAVE TO LAUGH OR YOU WOULD WEEP.. The most arresting new character I’ve met this year is the magnificent Hayley Atwell as Jenny; star of a New York private equity investm…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 05:39PMWednesday, January 31, 2018
AVE HYTNER IMPERATOR! THE BRIDGE AS ARENA Before the start, singing along with Eye of the Tiger in the melée and enjoying the red flags, baseball hats and beercans, we …
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 08:47AMTuesday, January 30, 2018
AVE HYTNER IMPERATOR! THE BRIDGE AS ARENA Before the start, singing along with Eye of the Tiger in the melée and enjoying the red flags, baseball hats and beercans, we …
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 07:50PMMonday, January 29, 2018
TWO QUEENS, TWO FATES Who shall be whom? In Robert Icke’s arresting adaptation of Schiller’s play, the scene opens with a sober-suited group of men watching two women in identical…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 08:06PM 
