Saturday, October 29, 2016
This is an unusual post, not about any current production, and far too long. And the latest current reviews are available below, AMADEUS at the top and well worth it. But there has…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 02:00PMWednesday, October 26, 2016
ONE OF THE GREAT NIGHTS The old man’s eye is unforgiving, his squat wrecked strength of will cows the vast room as he invokes us – “ghosts of the future” – t…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 07:07PMTuesday, October 25, 2016
TUMOURS, RUMOURS, A BIT OF HUMOUR The cancer thing finished off another old friend at the weekend, the call coming between the official press night and my getting to Bryony Kimmings…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 06:08PMTuesday, October 18, 2016
AN AFRICAN ODYSSEY Not all refugees are in Calais or aiming for here. This enthralling piece from Mark Dornford-May’s Isango Ensemble of Cape Town tells another story, an African ep…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 06:27PMMonday, October 17, 2016
NOT A BARNSTORMER. NOT THIS TIME.. About 65 minutes in, the willowy monotone Mona sighingly asks her lover “Don’t you get tired of your character? I think I do”. So civil is the…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 06:24PMSaturday, October 15, 2016
CO-CRITIC LUKE JONES, VIRTUOUSLY UNLUBRICATED, DEPLOYS THE DIPSTICK OF JUDGEMENT.. What I like about the Almeida is that is that the audience smells as if they’ve been bath…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 06:29AMThursday, October 13, 2016
A DEVOTED DIGNITY I was a little wary of this, the last two productions I saw (including the TV one) having left me mildly irritated and almost bored. For all its skill and wit, there…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 06:20PMTuesday, October 11, 2016
AMERICA AT A CROSSROADS, 1964 When Teresa May at the Tory Conference quoted the Sam Cooke lyric “A change is gonna come” , many on the left suffered, not unreasonably, a violent c…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 05:36PMLIVES IN A LUNCHTIME Having swerved going to the Edinburgh Fringe this year (costs, personal issues, exhaustion , don’t ask) I felt I was owed some hour-long daytime sessio…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 12:10PMAFTER THE WAR WAS OVER…SOUTHERN ACCIDIE.. Lilian Hellman – tough, personally unconventional, a liberal ahead of her time – counted this as one of her favourite works. Most …
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 11:42AMFriday, October 7, 2016
SEX AND SOCIALISM: AN EDWARDIAN ESCAPE The view E.M.Forster sought for his heroine in the novel is more than a pretty Italian backdrop or a Surrey hillside – though this…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 04:33PMTuesday, October 4, 2016
A SURREAL SPRITZER Zurich a century ago: the still centre of a wheel of war, neutral refuge of “spies, exiles, refugees, artists , writers , revolutionaries and radicals̶…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 07:05PMTuesday, September 27, 2016
COMIC DARING, DILDO-JABBING, PHILOSOPHICAL DESPAIR… It is not surprising that theatre falls in love with the Restoration : the stage itself springing back to life after Purit…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 05:48PM OH, WHAT A WITTY, AND PITIFUL, WAR There is greatness in joking at the mouth of Hell; especially if those jokes are part of comradeship, a gift to those alongside. A hundred ye…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 03:07AMSaturday, September 24, 2016
GUEST CRITIC LUKE JONES DOWN WID DA SHAKESPEARE KIDZ Someone find Mark Rylance and distract him. Take him far from Bankside so he can’t see what they’ve done. Not only ar…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 03:27AMWednesday, September 21, 2016
AGE, MEMORY, WHISKY AND DEATH… DRINK TO THAT “But you see, its ABOUT being rather bored and baffled. Thats the POINT” said a pleading voice in the interval scuffle. She…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 05:42PM LIBERATION AND COURTSHIP IN A HEAD-ON CLASH Not long left for Samantha Ellis’ knowing, teasing little comedy of modern manners and delusions, and it’s well worth a look. It was …
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 11:51AMSunday, September 18, 2016
CHILD PRISONERS OF TERROR The faces of Nigerian Chibok schoolgirls – kidnapped en masse from school or in smaller village raids – haunt the world. Bright teenage f…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 11:56AMMonday, September 12, 2016
TWO UP A MOUNTAIN, ONE LOOKING UP IN ANGER From Wales to this easternmost festival Tamara Harvey – newish artistic director of Theatr Clwyd – brings a new play by Elinor Cook. It…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 01:30PMThursday, September 1, 2016
A SERIOUS, DARK-TONED MORALITY The court is ancient, formal, superstitious. Hunched and huddled figures, anonymously poor, scuttle aside for the courtiers to assemble. When the…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 07:18PMWednesday, August 31, 2016
A RARITY, AND A TOPICAL TREAT It’s an American story and a universal one: choose money and status, or idealistic service? Big business or big heart, slick city or smalltown v…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 10:30AMTuesday, August 30, 2016
KENNETH BRANAGH IS NO KEN DODD… If you find yourself in an audience of maturer years , flee quickly at the final curtain, or someone will creakingly inform you that they …
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 05:45PMTuesday, August 16, 2016
MINCHIN MAGIC. ONE TO SEE AGAIN. AND AGAIN. The film by Danny Rubin gave us the expression for eternal déja-vu: Bill Murray played Phil the arrogant celebrity weatherman, se…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 07:49PMFriday, August 5, 2016
A TREMENDOUS TRINITY This trilogy, transferred from Chichester is an epic: a thrilling voyage through time to the earliest days of Anton Chekhov. And, if it is not too philistine…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 12:49PMA CAUTIONARY TALE FOR ALL TIMES AND NATIONS… “Allow for a three-gin recovery period” advised a tweeter, during the previews of Simon Stone’s take on this perennial theme o…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 12:13PMFriday, July 29, 2016
GUEST CRITIC LUKE JONES LIKES LOTT A LOT… It’s easy to get worked up by celebrities and big names crowding out the talented-but-unknown usuals. ‘They’re just there …
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 02:01AMTuesday, July 26, 2016
FLASH BANG WALLOP.. This 1963 show – based loosely on H.G.Wells’ semiautobiographical KIPPS – was originally a vehicle for Tommy Steele. And there were moments, a…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 07:51PMMonday, July 25, 2016
JUST WHAT WE WAND-ED? It’s not only Henry IV who gets two plays. Cry God for Harry, Hogwarts and St Joanne: the woman who (whether you love the tales or not) admirably got a tell…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 06:50PMSaturday, July 16, 2016
THE NEW F-WORD (AND A FAIR FEW OF THE OLD ONE) You can trust Alistair Beaton to keep a cast learning last-minute lines. Here, just as grace-notes alongside the main theme, are jokes a…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 04:58AMWednesday, July 13, 2016
ONCE UPON A TIME, WHICH COULD BE NOW… What a marvel is this Sondheim / Lapine classic musical: playful and deep, absurd and earthy, mocking and wise. And what a piece of luck…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 06:51PMAYCKBOURN AT IT AGAIN..OR IS IT There’s tennis without a ball (audience requested to do plock-plock sound effects on drums), a mini-farce, thriller and horror story also supported b…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 07:59AM 
