1,418 stories from theatrecat.com
​​IT TAKES TWO​​…​  Here's a sharp eyed little gem about coupledom and the wary, fretful road towards parenthood in an age of easy contraception …
TWO CURATORS, ACROSS EIGHTY YEARS   The little Swan , a jewel-box of a theatre, often sees the new plays the RSC does best: immaculate technique and careful clarity elucidating c…
INSPECTOR GOOLE, BACK BACK ON THE ROAD  Below, edited, is my original London review of this remarkable production. This new tour deserves to be marked, though:  r…
A COOL EYE ON SHATTERED LIVES     Of all the well known flaws of our criminal justice system, one of the most glaring is how badly it fits women " though they are…
THE DARK AND THE CRAZY    This is " for us anyway " the first production in the Trump era of this savage musical: a revue reimagining of all the attempts, successful …
PEOPLE OF THE BLITZ  Sarah Waters' best novel, evoking lives during and after the London Blitz,  was told backward in time. It is much the same way, indeed, as we meet real…
THE LOW DISHONEST DECADE…  It's always intimate, the Jermyn,. We're in an autumn garden, apples on the ground and fading roses on the wall;  birdsong, and a tea table set…
A COLLIDING WORLD    Couldn't miss this: for two years as a teenager (Dad in the Jo'burg Embassy)  I lived alongside the frightened, arrogant paranoia of white South A…
15 CHARACTERS OBJECTING TO AN AUTHOR..  The Jane Austen industry never flags, in tribute or in parody. You can barely throw a bonnet without hitting an Austentatious improv,�…
KING JOHN WAS NOT A GOOD MAN…   Maybe we should stick to AA Milne's version?  "King John was not a good man He had his little ways  And sometimes no one spoke to him For day…
GLOBAL AND GENDER POLITICS INÂ PERFECT MINIATURE Â Â Â A glass conference-centre in the host nation France;Â a visiting US President avid for airstrikes after a terrorist outra…
GUEST REVIEWER BEN DOWELL SAYS HANKS FOR THE MEMORY , AND BRAVELY FACES THE WEIRDNESS Â This is a lavish revival of the 1996 musical version of the 1988 Tom Hanks fantasy comedy, complete…
THIRTY YEARS LATER AND STILL FURIOUS: HEDDA'S BACK Â Â Â Â Last night, while Parliament spiralled into disorderly, resentful confusion and Mr Bercow dramatically put an end to him…
OLD TIMES, OLD  SORROWS: BEFORE THE RAINBOW  With Parliament in uproar upriver , the NT hit a luckily apt moment to stage Simon Woods' first play and promote it as a "w…
GUEST REVIEWER CHARLOTTE VALORI SWOONS OVER SWASHBUCKLINGÂ AT GRIMEBORN Director Emma Jude Harris "couldn't believe her luck" when she discovered Cabildo, the only opera by pioneering com…
BITTERLY BRITISH    It was a good mix of ages in the Curve audience, so perhaps a public service to remind the rising generation, awash in Brexindignation, that Ut…
GUEST REVIEWER CHARLOTTE VALORI FINDS JOPLIN TROUBLINGLY FUN Scott Joplin was rightly proud of Treemonisha, an opera for which he wrote both libretto and score; it was never fully staged in …
GUEST REVIEWER CHARLOTTE VALORI MARVELS AT THE OPERATIC POTENTIAL OF SIGNDANCE The double bill of Gillian Whitehead's Hotspur with Schoenberg's great Modernist Pierrot Lunaire is the first o…
A STRANGE RESURRECTION, BETWEEN WARS    A red sun was setting beyond the trees as we gathered around a square, isolated house in the golden-hour splendour.  Here the land…
GUEST REVIEWER CHARLOTTE VALORI FINDS DIMNESS RATHER THAN DAWN AT GRIMEBORN If Aylin Bozok is directing anything at Grimeborn, I always try to go. I've been absolutely blown away by her past…
GUEST REVIEWER CHARLOTTE VALORI FINDS NOT MUCH UNFOLDING AT GRIMEBORN I have to admit " I'm a sucker for a bit of rarefied Japanese elegance on stage in almost any context: the very mention …
GUEST REVIEWERÂ BEN DOWELL SEES A GOOD SUBJECT NOT QUITE GETTING THERE… Â The trafficking of human beings " 7,000 identified in the UK in 2018 " is a disgusting blight on our country…
A GRIPPING PIECE OF HISTORY        In 1944 the adventurous British director Peggy Webster cast the first black Othello in the USA, where for a white woman …
GUEST REVIEWER CHARLOTTE VALORI GETS INTO THE BLITZ SPIRIT WITH OPERA ALEGRIA AT GRIMEBORN Rossini's Le Comte Ory is a flirtatious farce in which a naughty young Count drives everyone …
A YOUTHFUL HALLELUJAH      ANother fascinating London premiere for Two's Company and the Finborough, buried for nearly half a century after one brief 1970 tour . �…
