1,418 stories from theatrecat.com
A WARNING FOR ALL TIMES   This is the big one. It's the National Theatre at its strongest:  unapologetic, classic, unsparing, gripping, impassioned.  Here's t…
THERAPISTS AS HUMANS  Georgina Burns is a trained and experienced NHS therapist, now with Hampstead support a playwright. So, unlike most other writers tempted by the theatric…
A MODEST AND REMORSEFUL SELF-REBUKE     There's a curious outbreak of reparations going on. The Old Vic, which binned Into the Woods in outrage at Terry Gilliam's reported…
A GOTHIC SORROWÂ IN OLD BOSTON When you say you're off to a Suffolk village hall to see a tiny company "Â best known for its mini-pantos " doing a dramatised tribute to Edgar Allan Poe,…
AMBITION , DISGRACE, RUIN, WOMEN Heavy footfalls pace overhead, enervating, raising anxiety. Anna Fleischle's galleried grey set is half Scandi-minimo-chic, half penitentiary. Downstairs…
GLORIOUS AS EVER Â Â Â Â Millions know it by now, but in case like my enthralled companions last night you aren't among them, Â grant me a moment or skip the the penultimate p…
WISHFUL DELUSIONS IN A MIDDLE AGED DOLDRUM Susan finds herself in mid-life with a dull clerical husband (Nigel Lindsay really enjoying it) , obsessed with his dreary parish history pamph…
LORD, WHAT FOOLS WE LIBERALS BE…    In a beanbagged, bright-coloured primary school in Berkeley, California, its executive committee of five seek consensus over reclassifyin…
REFINED AND FEATHER-DUSTED: CRUELTY IN THE SUBURBS We are in a suburban drawing-room in 1926, which some characters will still call the "parlour". Near the front, close enough to…
A CENTURY SURVIVED Â Â It is no bad week to be contemplating the Jewish custom of sitting shiva:Â spending seven days on a hard wooden bench when "you laugh, you cry, you argue" in t…
EVEN A SNAIL WILL REACH ITS HOME Â Â Â Â Â That's a Nigerian saying, apparently. Â But shiny though the shell is, Â Richard Eyre's play becomes a frustrating stew of idea…
SAYERS, SAYING IT FOR WORKING WOMEN Â Here's a treat:Â first half in Venice (with a glorious Canaletto backdrop) and the second, after some elegant Jermyn set-changing, in a London pla…
GUEST REVIEWER CHARLOTTE VALORI FINDS SOME INTERESTING THREADS SLIGHTLY UNRAVELLED AT GRIMEBORN Fringe opera festivals sometimes give us a chance to see new work in progress " i.e. unfinishe…
A SPIKY AND SPECTACULAR DELIGHT       Humanity in every century has needed to plunge into the dark forests, questing or fleeing, finding wonders or wolves:Â�…
IT'S BACK: A NEW DIRECTION HOME   This humbly immense, uniquely created show threw me for a loop five summers ago. It's back on tour, via Oliviers and Broadway awards,  wi…
GUEST REVIEWER CHARLOTTE VALORI GETS SWEPT UP IN THE MAGIC, THE MUSIC AND THE META Opera Alegria's vivacious foray into Mozart's Magic Flute for Grimeborn takes its inspiration from the thea…
VOICES FROM THE GRAVE AND THE CELLAR, UNIGNORABLE     Timely, enterprising, emotionally shattering, politically shaming.  These two plays were both  both first born at …
CARRY ON. OR, TO PUT IT ANOTHER WAY, KEEP MESSIN' ABOUT… Â Â My first concern was, will they dare give us the sadness? Kenneth Williams was a comic marvel self-created, a versatile a…
GLITTER AND HARD GRAFT     A basement hung with glitter strings, a small moody band with earthy bass, a bar: few better places to revel in torch songs, deep-dug anthems an…
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.    Lyttelton, SE1 SHAKESPEARE IN THE SWING AGE    A star danced, and under it was Simon Godwin's joyful, 1930s Riviera production born. Qui…
 STARRY SISTERHOOD IN OLD VIENNA    Identical twin girls, separated at birth in their parents divorce, meet at summer camp and resolve to swop places.  Remember  "The Pa…
THE SCOTTISH PLAY ON ANCIENT TURF Â Â "This castle hath a pleasant seat.." Â Indeed it does:Â Red Rose Chain's traditional outdoor show now lives alongside the mysterious mounds …
101 DALMATIANS    Open Air Theatre, Regent's Park NW1 BARKING IN THE PARK    Wooof!  The OAT's new show, bounding and cavorting along under the di…
CHARLIE IS , ONCE AGAIN, OUR DANCING DARLING…     Foiled by heatwave and trains, I made it six days later to the summer's highlight, the glorious absurdity of this wicke…
   Twice lately, under tall oaks and pines on what is becoming known as Suffolk's mini-Minack, I have encountered touring opera companies doing wonderfully, relaxedly, profess…
