DIE FLEDERMAUS Arcola, E8 by Libby Purves and Friends

GUEST REVIEWER CHARLOTTE VALORI GOES BATS FOR BASELESS FABRIC'S SOCIAL MEDIA TAKE ON STRAUSS "I'm not saying I'm Batman. I'm just saying nobody has ever seen me and Batman in a room together…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 3:36am on August 8, 2019☆⚑

DAS RHEINGOLD Arcola, E8 by Libby Purves and Friends

GUEST REVIEWER CHARLOTTE VALORI CAN'T GET ENOUGH OF GRIMEBORN'S GLITTERING TREASURE The Ring Cycle is opera's biggest box set: a sixteen-hour binge of dwarves, nymphs, dragons, gods, heroes …

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 9:18pm on August 3, 2019☆⚑

ROMEO AND JULIET           Jimmy's Farm, Wherstead Suffolk by Libby Purves and Friends

   ROCK 'N ROLL N' ROMEO        Deep under the trees, beyond Jimmy's meerkat and camel enclosures lies a 1960's beach: shelter, deckchairs and lounging teens,  Mods and …

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 9:00am on August 3, 2019☆⚑

MISS HAVISHAM'S WEDDING NIGHT /12 POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON Arcola, E8 by Libby Purves and Friends

GUEST REVIEWER CHARLOTTE VALORI GOES MAD FOR AMERICAN MONODRAMA A pairing of two American music dramas promised plenty of angsty feminist fun for a Friday night at Grimeborn; and I admit, in…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 8:39pm on August 2, 2019☆⚑

SHACKLETON'S CARPENTER Jermyn St, SW1 by Libby Purves and Friends

HEROIC ENDURANCE            In the background a lecture in the old Home Service style, decorous and passionless,  finishes relating the story of Sir Ernest Shackleton's …

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 5:03am on August 1, 2019☆⚑

OKLAHOMA                   Chichester Festival Theatre by Libby Purves and Friends

COWBOYS WITHOUT INDIANS         I suppose it's perverse to start at the end, but of all the aspects of Jeremy Sams' handsome production of the Rodgers & Hammerstein crowd-ple…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 11:34am on July 23, 2019☆⚑

THE NIGHT OF THE IGUANA       Noel Coward, WC2 by Libby Purves and Friends

FALLEN ANGELS ENDURING THE STORM         You can feel the heat in Rae Smith's design,  Mexican sun on the rock overhead, and the corrugated iron roofs of the rundown hot…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 5:30am on July 17, 2019☆⚑

   JOSEPH AND THE AMAZING TECHNICOLOUR DREAMCOAT                London Palladium W1 by Libby Purves and Friends

  IT'S BACK,  YOUNGER THAN EVER…     We love a starry debut, especially on opening night in a huge theatre:   a 21-year-old not yet through drama school making a stonking…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 10:31am on July 12, 2019☆⚑

MEASURE FOR MEASURE Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford upon Avon by Libby Purves and Friends

DEVOTION , DISGUISE,  DECADENCE     What a strange and stirring play this is!    Set in convent, court and condemned-cell,  it is spiked with moral ambiguities and fuelled …

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 1:03pm on July 5, 2019☆⚑

THE END OF HISTORY Royal Court SW1 by Libby Purves and Friends

BLAIR TO BREXIT " A FAMILY TALE         Jack Thorne and director John Tiffany,  are the Harry Potter team.  They know how not to bore.   But they've been here before …

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 5:29am on July 4, 2019☆⚑

NOISES OFF Lyric, Hammersmith by Libby Purves and Friends

FARCE AS LIFE, LIFE AS FARCE, FRAYN AGAIN TRIUMPHANS        It felt like a pilgrimage,  homage to pay.   37 years ago Michael Frayn's greatest of comedies, a wicked love-so…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 6:01am on July 3, 2019☆⚑

PRESENT LAUGHTER Old Vic SE1 by Libby Purves and Friends

COMEDY SHADING TO MELANCHOLY: WHAT'S TO COME IS STILL UNSURE…     First of all  let's say that  Andrew Scott is a marvel, a 21st century Ur-Coward hero,  who manages to do i…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 6:06pm on June 30, 2019☆⚑

AFTER DARK " A DRAMA OF LONDON LIFE Finborough, SW10 by Libby Purves and Friends

A SHILLING SHOCKER IS A JOY FOREVER     To come clean:  one reason I dashed to catch this fresh back from holiday is  not only that the Finborough is always interesting,   but…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 3:40am on June 29, 2019☆⚑

THE HUNT Almeida, N1 by Libby Purves and Friends

GUEST CRITIC BEN DOWELL SHIVERS " ADMIRINGLY " AT A TROUBLED TALE   In this hypersensitive age of MeToo accusations, anxieties about online pornography and even deeper-seated disquiet abo…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 9:58am on June 27, 2019☆⚑

THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY    Jermyn St Theatre WC2 by Libby Purves and Friends

RANCID LILIES, GORGEOUS WORDS       All the little Jermyn needs to complete this reimagination of Wildean epigrammatic decadence is to scent the auditorium overwhelmingly with lilie…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 8:02am on June 13, 2019☆⚑

A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM Bridge, SE1 by Libby Purves and Friends

FLYING,   FUNNY,  FABULOUS     This is a dream of a Dream.  One expected fun from the  combination of Nicholas Hytner,  a roiling mass of promenaders in the pit  and …

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 4:38pm on June 11, 2019☆⚑

THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON " a note Southwark, SE1 by Libby Purves and Friends

A NOTE ON A TREAT,  MOUSELESS BUT MELLOW    The film based on Scott Fitzgerald's story of a life lived backwards, born old and ending in babyhood,  was pretty awful.  So I …

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 3:44am on June 2, 2019☆⚑

RUTHERFORD AND SON Lyttelton, SE1 by Libby Purves and Friends

BULLYING, BOMBAST,   BETRAYAL      The rediscovery of Githa Sowerby in the 1990s is very satisfying.     At its premiere in 1913 critics saw the quality of this one but …

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 6:46am on May 29, 2019☆⚑

ORPHEUS DESCENDING Menier, SE1 by Libby Purves and Friends

SULTRY, SINFUL, SHOCKING, SHINING           Savagely observed  absurdity, blinding flashes of insight,  profound yearning, sudden poetry singing clear notes from the cru…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 12:31pm on May 16, 2019☆⚑

    SMALL ISLAND. Olivier, SE1 by Libby Purves and Friends

AN INTIMATE EPIC IN A FADING  EMPIRE    Hard to overstate what an absolute treat this is , and on how many levels. It is a terrific yarn,  both romantic and tough, about history …

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 12:11pm on May 16, 2019☆⚑

THE PROVOKED WIFE             Swan, Stratford upon Avon by Libby Purves and Friends

            There's something special about fin-de-siecle anger in any century: this is from 1697,  years later than Wycherley and the mellower Sheridan,  and  bes…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 10:33am on May 10, 2019☆⚑

FEAST FROM THE EAST              Tristan Bates Theatre WC2 by Libby Purves and Friends

SMALL IS  BEAUTIFUL, SHORT CAN BE SHARP        There is something stimulating about ultra-short plays:  five to twenty minutes  but directed and performed with all the c…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 6:07am on May 7, 2019☆⚑

SHADOWLANDS               Chichester Festival Theatre by Libby Purves and Friends

LOVE  AND LOSS AND 'THAT'S THE DEAL'        Jack is a middle-aged Oxford English don of the '50's , a bachelor and apologist for Christianity.  Graceful, witty books and le…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 12:15pm on May 6, 2019☆⚑

JUDE Hampstead, NW1 by Libby Purves and Friends

ECHOES OF ANTIQUITY ,  FRESHNESS OF YOUTH          It's a storming performance. Young  Isabella Nefar  as Judith erupts upon us:   adolescent, exuberant,  afire…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 5:10am on May 3, 2019☆⚑

ROSMERSHOLM                     Duke of York's, WC2 by Libby Purves and Friends

GUILT, GRIEF,   POLITICAL ANGUISH            Handy timing ,  to open on what is  local Election Day for us ruralists and at a time when everything has a Brexity ec…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 5:51pm on May 2, 2019☆⚑