All stories by Libby Purves on BroadwayStars

Monday, April 18, 2016

MY MOTHER SAID I NEVER SHOULD… St James Theatre, SW1 by Libby Purves

SIXTY YEARS, FOUR GENERATIONS: WHAT THE WOMEN DID     Say, first of all, that Maureen Lipman was born to play Doris, the Lancashire matriarch at the heart of Charlotte Keatley’s …

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 06:17PM

LEGALLY BLONDE, THE MUSICAL Curve, Leicester by Libby Purves

ELLE WOODS IS BACK,  PINKER THAN EVER   Full disclosure: transport , domesticity and a hacking cough meant that on this two-show day in the lovely Curve I had to skip out at the inter…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 04:38AM
Friday, April 15, 2016

ONE MILLION TINY PLAYS ABOUT BRITAIN – Touring by Libby Purves

There are actually only about thirty, out of Craig Taylor’s rather wonderful collection of 94 first seen in The Guardian. But the sense of our millions is there, as Laura Keefe’s joyful,…

SOURCE: mytheatremates.com at 07:36AM
Thursday, April 14, 2016

WIPERS Curve, Leicester by Libby Purves

THE HEROES FROM THE EAST   A hundred years ago, a Punjabi gunner in the 129th Baluchi regiment, Khudadad Khan, stayed at his post in the machine gun nest, injured and at bay , his comma…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 01:11PM
Tuesday, April 12, 2016

BOY Almeida, N1 by Libby Purves

STREETS OF LONDON, SNAKING TO NOWHERE…   The boy of the title  is Liam: gormless and runty, lost and unnoticed , scion of a demographic much discussed right now. For he’s a whi…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 05:01PM
Sunday, April 10, 2016

LES BLANCS – National Theatre by Libby Purves

This play is not about the American backwash from the slave era, but a shattering, important take on Colonial Africa, an unnamed country on the edge of revolution and independence. It is by …

SOURCE: mytheatremates.com at 10:56AM
Friday, April 8, 2016

INVINCIBLE Guildford, then Touring by Libby Purves

THE STATE OF ENGLAND:  FUNNY, BEAUTIFUL, SAD      AND TOURING!    Some issues do best as satirical or farcical comedies: English class division, illicit sex, misunderstanding. Othe…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 04:40AM
Wednesday, April 6, 2016

THE CARETAKER Old Vic SE1 by Libby Purves

SPALL, SQUALOR, AND 1960     I do not routinely worship at the shrine of Harold Pinter. I can study, appreciate and accept the menace, the unspoken, the rhythmic near-poetry of dialogu…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 06:31PM
Tuesday, April 5, 2016

X Royal Court, SW1 by Libby Purves

TO BOLDLY GO OFF YOUR HEAD, IN SPACE We are in the melamine mess-room of a space pod on the dead, black planet Pluto, with a crew of five. Unless one of them is a delusion of the nervy seco…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 05:23PM
Thursday, March 31, 2016

HOW THE OTHER HALF LOVES Theatre Royal, Haymarket SW1 by Libby Purves

THE CLASSIC COMEDY OF CLASS AND CONFUSION       We’re back in the 1960’s, and how! Beyond the jolly geometric curtain a bygone world revives. Shiny pink plastic boots, a rid…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 06:16PM
Tuesday, March 29, 2016

RIGHT NOW Bush, W12 by Libby Purves

A CREEPY BRILLIANCE  FROM QUEBEC   What’s going on? Who are the people in the next flat, why are they so friendly and yet so odd? Are they commonplace swingers, murderers, or a delus…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 06:14PM
Monday, March 28, 2016

SHADOWLANDS Touring by Libby Purves

HEAD, HEART, AND HOPEFULNESS   “God” says Christopher Riley, donnishly, “has a severely limited intellect”. Jack Lewis, his Magdalen colleague, demurs with affectionate impatien…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 01:33PM
Thursday, March 24, 2016

REASONS TO BE HAPPY Hampstead Theatre, NW3 by Libby Purves

REASONS TO BE UNREASONABLE…   I had almost forgotten seeing the first in this Neil laBute trilogy – Reasons to be Pretty – until the looming, hapless figure of Tom Bur…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 08:16PM
Thursday, March 17, 2016

THE PAINKILLER Garrick, SW1 by Libby Purves

BRANAGH AND BRYDON GO BANG   Well, you’ll never see our Kenneth Branagh more exuberantly violent, nor tumbling into more compromising positions; nor so crazedly drugged, veering f…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 07:50PM
Wednesday, March 16, 2016

THE TRUTH Menier, SE1 by Libby Purves

THE TRUTH GAME. OR NOT.  Its’ a while since so many shrieks, barks and snorts of laughter shook the seats around me: don’t take your drink in, you’ll risk doing the nose trick in …

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 08:21PM

NOTMOSES Arts Theatre, WC2 by Libby Purves

NOTAHIT   On the banks of the Nile, the princess of Egypt lifts a Jewish baby from the Nile waters, but changes her mind, chucks him back and chooses a prettier one. The reject survives…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 09:42AM

COSI FAN TUTTE /COSI Kings Head Theatre, N1 by Libby Purves

GUEST REVIEWER CHARLOTTE VALORI WATCHES MOZART WIPE THE FLOOR WITH THE COMPETITION – AS USUAL Pairing a copper-bottomed opera classic (Mozart’s Così fan tutte) with an imported Aus…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 07:19AM
Monday, March 14, 2016

MISS ATOMIC BOMB St James’, SW1 by Libby Purves

PLENTY OF ACTIVITY, NOT QUITE ENOUGH RADIANCE This theatre is certainly fearless about potentially tasteless names – Bad Jews, Urinetown, now Miss Atomic Bomb: the first two of those, …

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 07:10PM
Sunday, March 13, 2016

SOMEWHERE IN ENGLAND Eastern Angles, touring by Libby Purves

“OVERPAID, OVERSEXED, OVER HERE”…AND NOT AT EASE... In 1942 the Americans came to rural Britain: the US Eighth Air Force, its members often outnumbering local villagers 50 …

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 04:33PM
Thursday, March 10, 2016

LOOK BACK IN ANGER / JINNY Derby Theatre by Libby Purves

THE ANGRY YOUNG MAN RANTS AGAIN,  THEN CHANGES SEX   This is a sharp bit of work by Derby, marking 60 years since John Osborne’s splenetic debut blew the lid – so theatre legen…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 02:55PM
Wednesday, March 9, 2016

BERYL Rose, Kingston by Libby Purves

A TWO-WHEELED CHARIOT OF FIRE   I suppose there must be some lazy, vacillating, unfocused Yorkshirewomen, but I’ve not met one yet.  And of that tribe of gritty, unselfpitying, f…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 06:42PM
Tuesday, March 8, 2016

MOTOWN Shaftesbury Theatre, WC2 by Libby Purves

IT GLITTERS!  IT SINGS! IT MAKES SENSE. EVEN IN MAD TROUSERS!     I expected a big splashy jukebox musical, a-glitter with tearful Broadway sentiment and popster pizzazz. And indeed …

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 06:39PM
Friday, March 4, 2016

THE CAUSE Jermyn St Theatre, WC1 by Libby Purves

THE DAWN OF WAR,  1914   World War I and its aftermath are being well served by theatre (my last year’s reflections, http://tinyurl.com/q53tp5p). But Jeremy James’ play is the firs…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 05:11PM
Tuesday, March 1, 2016

WELCOME HOME CAPTAIN FOX Donmar WC1 by Libby Purves

LONG ISLAND, THE WIGS AND THE WARDROBE…   The Jean Anouilh plays I devoured as a neurotic sixth-former always had Antigone, Joan of Arc or Thomas a Becket heroically refusing comp…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 05:43PM
Monday, February 29, 2016

MRS HENDERSON PRESENTS NOEL COWARD THEATRE SW1 by Libby Purves

GETTING THEM OFF FOR VICTORY, UP WEST   I loved this show at the Theatre Royal, Bath, and – especially given a couple of rather snotty lukewarm reviews – thought I should ch…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 12:07PM
Sunday, February 28, 2016

THE RINSE CYCLE Charing Cross Theatre, WC2 by Libby Purves

  GUEST REVIEWER CHARLOTTE VALORI GETS UNEXPECTEDLY CASUAL ABOUT HIGH CULTURE Some people get terribly, passionately serious about Wagner. This shouldn’t be a problem: truly great mus…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 03:16PM
Friday, February 26, 2016

THE PATRIOTIC TRAITOR Park Theatre, by Libby Purves

BANG THE DRUM FOR THIS ONE:  AN INTIMATE EPIC OF WAR AND FRIENDSHIP   This premiere for the Park is a cracker: a serious, grownup, constantly entertaining light on history with fine-dr…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 02:17PM
Wednesday, February 24, 2016

THE TEMPEST Wanamaker at Shakespeare’s Globe, SE1 by Libby Purves

A FAREWELL TEMPEST, RICH AND STRANGE   For a departing artistic director, especially here, Shakespeare’s last plays are a natural choice: great poetic anthems of reconciliation and re…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 07:34PM
Thursday, February 18, 2016

NELL GWYNN Apollo, W1 by Libby Purves

A RESTORATION OF HIGH SPIRITS.. Looking back at this play’s first outing – in the outdoor, summery, rackety pleasure that is Shakespeare’s Globe – I remember actually liking …

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 12:33PM
Wednesday, February 17, 2016

WAR OF THE WORLDS Dominion , W1 by Libby Purves

THEY CAME, THEY CONQUERED   Call me a patsy and a soft touch, but you won’t find me sneezing at anything which – within twenty minutes of a deafening, blinding opening – o…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 06:53PM
Tuesday, February 16, 2016

THE ENCOUNTER Barbican and touring by Libby Purves

McBURNEY ON, AND IN, THE BRAIN If there is any theatre artist reliably able to draw you into a world of disorientation, time-slip, near-death and a sense of licking hallucinogenic frogs in a…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 06:21PM