1,405 stories from theatrecat.com
RIEN TO REGRET!  This is a terrific, impassioned production: not only does Kimberley Sykes' direction and Michele Meazza' s movement work keep it watchably, startlingly vigorous, Â�…
TRAGEDY WITHOUT A MORAL   Raoul Moat used steroids and bulking-powder to armour himself in muscle, nourished a bottomless well of grievance and self-pity , and imposed his ne…
THE DEPTHS BELOW THE WIT   The plays, ever revived, we know well; the wit is often cited, the old injustice of his downfall recreated in plays and films: most recently we…
VENEZIANA !    Buongiorno to Venice 1730, a city stage topped with the golden winged lion of St Mark, arched and curtained and lit with candelabras . Overhead a twelve-pie…
DARK FANGTASY IN A SCAFFOLDING CITY Â Â For this compact and creepy little atmospheric treat, John Donnelly turns to vampires. That's not a spoiler: the programme is full of learned st…
BEYOND QATAR…       Two years ago this show was a pleasure " (https://theatrecat.com/2023/06/21/dear-england-olivier-se1/) , and now, on the far side of …
POWER, MAJESTY AND JUSTICE      Very good to see this intense three-hander by Ryan Calais Cameron (who gave us "For Black Boys.." ) migrating to Shaftesbury Avenue wit…
THE 1660's AND ALL THAT:  THEATRE REBORN     Oddly, for theatrecat it's the second day running of enliveningly energetic female history. After six women told the story…
A ROUSING RACKET TO HONOUR A LIFE   Mary Wollstonecraft was a pearl of the 18c Age of Reason, even more treasurable for having " as a woman " a harder time of it than all the Loc…
THE UNSERIOUS UNDEAD  "You will be horrified!" The five players announce, "- one way or another". And with a flourish they hurl Bram Stoker's book behind them into Tijana Bjelajac's�…
A STRANGE WARTIME FABLE OF LIFE, BIRTH AND JEWELLERY Â In a little Jeweller's shop in 1942Â Paris Joseph Haffmann is making a deal with his young assistant Pierre. Â He is Jewish, a…
AN ANCIENT BRUTALITY, RIGHT HERE     Five women from the past mount the stage, candlelit, to enact theterrible story of the 17c Suffolk witch-trials.  First there…
BRUTAL, VIOLENT AND TENDER   Around a King's coffin surge personalities and politics , power plays and lineage . A royal bier is loaded with crown and jewelled cross, around …
 HEROIC STORY, NEAR MISS   It could hardly be a better theme and story for this terrific little theatre, which since its opening has explored the darkness of Nazism and the heroism…
A TROUSER-LEG TSUNAMI AND A COATHANGER DREAM     They came off the boats: a Windrush generation, wanting to work and live in cold strange Britain.  In an upper…
HEART AND HUMOUR, REALPOLITIK AND GOD     This is a wonderful play, all you could want: philosophy, history prefiguring the present moment, humour and character , …
A RAVE IN MESSINA Get da kids into Shakespeare! The world worries about it. So Jamie Lloyd hits a formula hard to beat with one of the sunniest comedies (only one pretend death). So …
MOTHERHOOD, FOR LIFE     Had there been trigger warnings they might add "extreme nursing" alongside the usual alerts about sickness, death, abortion and conflict. Believe …
A THREAT CALLED AGGIE . Good when the news feeds theatre-moments. This week, AI solved in two days a medical conundrum which had baffled humans for a decade. On the other hand,…
VOYAGE OF THE DAMNED ON SS ELSINORE Last time the ever-inventive Rupert Goold directed here it was the Merchant of Venice, set in a casino so we could all write "merchant of Vegas"…
RICHARD II     Bridge Theatre, SE1  A THRILLING DANCE AROUND A CROWN    This is one of the most lyrically lovely, metaphorically rich of Shakespeare's…
A TRICYCLE MADE FOR THREE?   After Mike Bartlett's COCK " where one of a gay male couple falls for a girl " I wrote that the poor sap of a hero thinks he he choosing a sexuality …
A BRITISH BASTARD STALKS THROUGH HISTORY   What's to be done about truly awful people: amoral, selfishly irresponsible, arrogant and greedy? A time-honoured British appr…
  A GREAT TURNING POINT, CAUGHT IN ASPIC  It is 1942.  Prime minister Churchill has travelled to Moscow to meet Stalin. Each side has a problem at home with voices wanting …
WILD SHORES IN WARTIME   Risk taking a gap between seeing David Greig plays and you forget how downright louche things are likely to turn out. (I had lately revelled in Prudencia…
