1,418 stories from theatrecat.com
FAST, FINE  STREETWISE SHAKESPEARE     Running and scuffling, a crowd of kids in black scatter across the stark stage under an open-sided, distressedly concr…
GUEST CRITIC MICHAEL ADAIR  FINDS  KINSHIP IN  A FAMILY SORROW Well, this is timely. In the shadow of Windrush, a play  immerses us in the colourful traditions …
COWARD GOES FARCEO-FORTISSIMO      In the final outburst from our hero Gary Essendine – silk-dressing-gowned philanderer, arrogantly insecure d…
A WAR OVER, A WORLD ADRIFT It's a great tapestry of a play: Rodney Ackland's portrait of a Soho nightclub as WW2 ended. Socialites and slobs, black-marketeers and failing artists, una…
REBEL WITHOUT AN ARGUMENT It is a curiosity of the age that young British women seem to be far angrier about The Patriarchy than their mothers , even though law, language, women's acc…
GOLDEN SANDS AND GRIEVANCES Nicola Werenowska has certainly found fertile ground for the setting of her play: the decline of English seaside towns (in this case Clacton) from t…
Part 1: SECRET HEARTS (and an explanation) This is a fabulously quixotic enterprise directed by Tom Littler: a revival of all nine of Noel Coward's one-act plays, written in 1935 as a…
MORE THAN A PICNIC Â I could tell you that it is worth going up West for the transfer of Hampstead's fine play just to see Roger Allam (his fine quiff sadly suppressed under…
BAT'S BACK…    In a remarkably quick return after its Coliseum outing , Jim Steinman's barmy musical is storming onto the Tottenham Court Road, rocking on. Few cast c…
A LATE NIGHT TO REMEMBER      At twenty to midnight, 106 years to the day after the collision, an audience gathered in this big theatre to mark and remember…
SCI-FI AND SORROW We begin with a tiny proscenium box, an almost Punch-and-Judy window, framing Harry and his wife Max: nice middle-aged people, evoked to sitcom perfection by a beard…
  THE JOINT IS JUMPING! AGAIN…   Openings are running in themed  sets – three Restoration comedies coming along like No.11 buses, and now two …
SWOTS OR SWINDLERS, VILLAINS OR VICTIMS? Sometimes a West End transfer serves a play royally. At Chichester last year I enjoyed James Graham's playful, thoughtfully mischievous…
CATHY, STILL NOT HOME AFTER FIFTY YEARS Homeless charities like to remind us of the mantra: we are all just two bad decisions away from the pavement. The trajectory of our heroine Cat…
SHORT, SHARP, STIMULATING    The INK new writing festival (http://inkfestival.org) is a phenomenon: a space where writers of any experience or none can submit short plays …
FROTHING OVER WITH FEMALE HILARITY A pre-curtain ensemble of one harpsichord and a quartet of periwigged lady saxophonists, playing Mozart with a touch of oompah, is always…
IT'S THAT SHOW AGAIN, AND VERY WELCOME TOO It's WW2 themed. Gas masks, posters, programmes in an ARP fire-bucket and rude songs to cheer the troops on leave and show Hitler that Brita…
HARD HOMECOMINGS FOR THE DOGS OF WAR Boots, boots, boots, boots: stamping out the immemorial rhythm of army discipline, nineteen men and women move as one, expressionless, freed for a…
A SOLO REFLECTION ON PUBERTY AND AFTER. Naomi Sheldon's solo, semi-autobiographical hour comes from Edinburgh crowned with plaudits, though cunningly in the programme she does …
FOR ONCE IN A LIFETIME THE DEAR MENIER DOES NOT MAKE GUEST REVIEWER LUKE JONES HAPPY. NOT HAPPY AT ALL.  EXCEPT AT THE PROJECTIONS. Two prisoners are locked in an Argent…
IT'S THAT MAN AGAIN… It is awkward that two major new productions of the Scottish Play, by two determinedly auteurish directors, open in the same month. Rufus Norris' bleak "pos…
GUEST CRITIC JENNIFER-JANE BENJAMIN FINDS WHAT MATTERS Lights up. A confederate statue. A blackout. And it disappears. It's November 1963 and we're in Lake Charles, Louisiana. JFK has…
SILENT, SIGNIFICANT CREATURES The candlelit Wanamaker has proved its worth as a music-room, notably with All The Angels and the divine Farinelli. This takes it further with the first …
 DANGEROUS DAYS AND COURAGEOUS SCIENCE This terrific meteorological thriller, set in the crucial days before D-Day, is written by – and stars – David Haig. In 20…
FREE HANKY WITH EVERY PROGRAMME (honest..!) Ten years ago Emma Rice and her Kneehigh group brought this adaptation of Noel Coward’s heartrending film to the stage – to a c…
