1,418 stories from theatrecat.com
WHILE THE REAL ONE RUNS…. With the Covid Inquiry surging along in a froth of accusations and curses and scandalous Whatsappery, it was hard to resist a hasty day-return to Harry Davies' de…
THE FIRST WITCHFINDER, NOT WITHOUT LESSONS FOR TODAY     This is remarkable, Joanna Carrick's best and deepest play yet,  following her acclaimed Reformation trilogy.…
A MOTHER'S LIFE, A SON'S PERSPECTIVE Sometimes it is almost useful to be a day late (sorry, tied up yesterday) because it gives a chance to read other people's take on the play you saw.�…
GENIUS, REALPOLITIK, RELIGION    In days of horrifying conflict there was quite a jolt in a confrontation between Stephen Hagan's resplendently silver-suited Frederick the…
PROPERTY RAGE FROM ANOTHER AGE Here's a curiosity from 1972; an early , rarely-seen Caryl Churchill play revived with dashing elegance under the Jermyn's Artistic director Stella Pow…
GRIM AND PURE BY THE DOCKS, PITY AND POETRY   The lawyer Alfieri, prowling in memory round Arthur Miller's stark tale of immigrant longshoremen on the 1940's Brooklyn docks, s…
A LEARNED FRIEND REMEMBERED   Rumpole of the Bailey is occasional comfort-viewing in our house, thanks to Talkingpicturestv repeats. John Mortimer's portrait of the old barri…
ITS THE PICTURES THAT GOT SMALL? Not if Lloyd can help it. It felt strange to see this in the bowels of a gala-night Savoy, only a week or two after our local arts centre showed the …
IT'S BACK, THROUGH THE NURSERY WINDOW, STILL FLYING    Just to reassure you: this offshoot from Mischief, the team who brought you the perennial Play-goes-wrong, is still…
 THE TWIG WHO BRANCHED OUT    We get up to speed on the period, with irresistible tracks from the golden age of pop: Beatles, Stones, Animals.  Onstage is a photograph…
A TANKFUL OF EMOTIONAL TENTACLES    Where better than Hampstead to watch the interplay of cutting-edge science with emotional intensity and philosophical unanswerables? Upsta…
PHONETICALLY PHABULOUS Â Â Â Last time Bertie Carvel was on this stage it was as Donald Trump. Now our best shapeshifter is Henry Higgins: capering, swearing, somewhere on the far si…
THE INFECTION OF WICKEDNESS Â Â Â Â Â The history of the Lodz ghetto in Poland is a part of the Holocaust story worth foxusing on, ot least because the Jewish population there …
LAST NIGHT I DREAMT I WENT TO MANDERLEYÂ YET AGAIN… Â Â Â Daphne Du Maurier's story is almost a national myth, what with the grand house on the towering cliffs, the terrifying …
LOSS AND GRIEF IN A SILICON WORLD     In a bleak grey minimalist space Merril (a restlessly gamine Myanna Buring) is grieving her much younger sister Angie, who has v…
INDIA 1948 , LESSONS FOR ALL TIME   This show is a happy return, especially if like me you missed it last summer: the National at its best, a modern epic and warning directed…
SHOOT, SCORE, SPARK!  This is the year of football plays. First Dear England at the Olivier, now the women's turn on another stage, out East a bit. Here's another neon str…
A SCANDALOUS WOMAN IN A STORMY WORLD    A distant thunder of naval artillery: against elegant panelled walls in Naples a bundled matron  in a bonnet watches her flighty daugh…
FOUR MORE AWFUL PEOPLE, HURRAH Â Â Â Â Â Two four-handers about awful middle class behaviour in a week:Â just what the irritable heatwave needed. Â This, which I caught i…
WHEN THE VIRTUE-SIGNALS DRIVE YOU OFF THE RAILS Â Â Â In a boutique restaurant going bankrupt, Jacq and Kas nervously prepare to admit it to their main investor Tobin and his wife Ad…
 HAVING THE BEST OF TIMES IN THE PARK   Even in familiar classics you can never predict which anthem will set you dabbing your eye.  You might expect it at Albin's anguish…
DOPAMINE , DRUGS, DANGER, DOCTORS  This intriguing play by Lucy Prebble aired in 2012 in the intimate Cottesloe space , with Billie Piper and Jonjo o'Neill as paid subjects in an ant…
FORTY YEARS ON, FROM TWO PERSPECTIVES Â Â This is a properly interesting RSC commission: a history play about the Falklands invasion by Argentina in 1982 and the British task force whi…
SORROW AND SUSPICION Â Â This one had me from the first few minutes: another Jermyn find. Â A new play, whose young actor- writer Abigail Hood and director Kevin Tomlinson both perf…
A CORONATION YEAR ROMP ANYWAY      A neighbour in the stalls confided that she sees a lot of West End theatre but avoids "the more highbrow sort". She was in the right…
