1,418 stories from theatrecat.com
STRIDING OUT OF THE FRAME : A KICK-ASS HEROINE OF THEATRE Theatre owes a lot to Joan Littlewood: daughter of East End larkiness , music-hall jangle and tough 1930's socialism; idealis…
OH WHAT A TREAT… OI!        The sun has got his hat on, England's in the semi-final under a chap with a proper waistcoat, and Noel Gay's 1937 musical i…
CHARLOTTE VALORI FINDS SAND, SEA AND SERIOUSNESS AT BUXTON On his way home from victory at Troy, Cretan king Idomeneo's ship is caught in a dreadful storm. In desperation, he vows to Neptune…
CHARLOTTE VALORI UNCOVERS FORGOTTEN INCA GOLD WITH VERDI IN BUXTON Verdi's little-known opera about Peruvian Incas and Spanish conquistadors, Alzira, has finally received its UK premiere at …
A REVIVAL CRASHING WITH NEW LIFE AND ANCIENT DARKNESS A heatwave in festival season, everyone's muzzy yearning for greenwood misrule: it's perfect timing for the dangerous…
CRITIC AND HELLRAISER LUKE JONES WINCES AND LAUGHS … This is as violent as anything I've seen on the stage. And I'm including in this survey that Titus Andronicus at the Globe w…
A RISOTTO OF RESENTMENTS In some plays, you reach the interval not exactly dissatisfied but wondering "where is this going next? How will it knit up the ends.? So m…
MICHAEL ADAIRÂ SHUDDERS AT THE HARD OLD PATRIARCHY… 'These modern neurotic women, doctor. What are we going to do with them?' says one exasperated male character to another. H…
STRINDBERG MEETS STENHAM, BIRD MEETS BLENDER We're in a Hampstead mansion. The daughter of the house is whooping it up at her birthday party, a deafening, purple-lit rave where tight-…
THE RUMBUSTIOUS AFFAIR OF THE CLOGS IN THE NIGHT TIME Barrie Rutter and the Globe are made for each other:. Fresh out of his storming leadership (and frequent personal performa…
A WRITER, A MOTHER, A LIFE The elegant new Bridge continues to demonstrate – firmly " that it is uniquely versatile. After one traditional tragicomedy (Young Marx) we had a swir…
LUKE JONES REVELS Â IN VIOLENCE, CHILL, NIGHTMARE..AND GREAT DIALOGUE Orlando Bloom – denim, cowboy hat, slicked back hair, twinkling grimace – is as chilled out as a ma…
A TAPESTRY OF HOPE Â Â Â Â Â Lady Anne Tree was the Duke of Devonshire's daughter, sister in law of Kathleen Kennedy and Debo Mitford: Â grand as they come. Â…
THE EDUCATION JUNGLE    A late catch-up for this short tour from Theatre Royal York: but blimey, well worth it. sA drawing-room drama of manners with deep, tangled …
SORROW AND SPLENDOUR IN WORDS THAT SING The first act of Brian Friel's great play ends with a shout of "bloody, bloody, bloody marvellous!". And so it bloody well is, this comi…
LUKE JONES FALLS FOR TINKERBELL… Peter Pan has now flown into every medium possible. He is a play, novel, pantomime, musical, television programme, cartoon and a Kate Bush single. This…
MULTINATIONAL MENACE It is always a dilemma, for those of us who despise star-ratings as a measuring device, when a 90 minute play seems set fair to earn three, or three-and-a-bit, tr…
THE NEW ERA BEGINS…   Here's a vulnerable Hamlet: a lonely lad in proper tearful grief and disappointment at his mother's remarriage.  A Hamlet who, in feigning …
BOW, BOW! THEY'RE ON THE ROAD AGAIN.. It must be nearly five years since Sasha Regan's all-male Iolanthe at Wiltons' caused me to break a lifelong resistance and enjoy …
SCHLOCK-HORRORWITZ  AND HURRAH FOR THE SKELETON   Gotta love the buccaneering quality of west end theatres: the Small Faces musical at the little Ambassadors off Cam…
THE SHINE AND THE TERROR It is no bad thing to have your stage hero effectively co-designing the set. Christopher Oram's recreation of Mark Rothko's 1950's studio is a bleak bo…
CLEAR YOUNG VOICES FROM A DISTANT PAST   Three children in the 1540's play in a hay-barn, built fragrant and real in the tiny theatre.  One has found a pilgr…
ROUGH, RURAL, A NEGLECTED ALBION An immense intrusive pipe bisects the stage, a rusty oil tank below it with part of a tractor one side and a cheerless Victorian brick farmhous…
OSCAR AT HIS MOST EARNEST Worth going to Jonathan Church's latest Wilde "Classic Spring"revival if only for a feast of Foxes: patriarch Edward as old Lord Caversham and his re…
CREATIVES, C***TS AND CONTRACTS  The theatrical repertoire has a new monster:  Bernard, created by Joe Penhall and brought to scorchingly memorable, sociopathicall…
