1,418 stories from theatrecat.com
MAZELTOV! JEWISH PANTO STRIKES AGAIN    Goldie Frocks, rightful heiress to an East End schmutter workshop, has been enslaved by the evil Calvin Brine, whose behemoth of t…
FEARED IT MIGHT BE TUTU MUCH, BUT NO…   I immediately fell for Frankie Bradshaw's set: a two- storey house lined with fossil skeletons in cases, and a spirited opening in whi…
LOOK BEYOND THE LETTUCE    It is a tribute to Greg Wilkinson's monologue play that I had not previously seen the rise and fall of Liz Truss as having a gripping dramatic line.Â�…
HIGH SPIRITS, HIGH COMEDY, EVEN HIGHER HEELS    Elton John, who jumped at the idea of writing the music, calls the 2006 film a favourite; many of us nod in blissful agreement…
C'EST MAGNIFIQUE !     Napoleon, defeated at Trafalgar, vows revenge on Britain and its "bootlicking monoglot monarchists". Stalking around in breeches and bicorn h…
TA-RAN-TA-RA !  Mike Leigh, a veteran better known for films, Abigail's Party and theatrical experiments with scriptless rehearsal, is also a dedicated devotee of the utterly scr…
THE COOLEST CAT IN LONDON. AND SOME RATS.      Here's your traditional Christmas outing, proper panto. No rackety popstar hype or tedious suggestive jokes from wor…
GALSWORTHY ? WELL WORTH SEEING   With late Victorians, there's plenty to bite on: a rising bourgeoisie aflame with parvenu ambition, piety , pannier skirts ,patriarch…
WISDOM IN A LIFE BACKWARDS Â Â Â Forget the awful fim made from Scott Fitzgerald's story about a life lived backwards " a man born in old age, working towards youth and infancy in re…
 A JOURNEY OF JOURNEYS    A map is a lovely thing, but sometimes practically speaking a diagram is better. And can also be lovely: especially when its useful elegance has beco…
THE BIG RATHER UNFRIENDLY GIANT    Tom Maschler, legendary publisher and once a Kindertransport child, summed up the appeal of Roald Dahl: his stories offer…
1648, Agra: marble and murder, a terrible beauty   One of the worst photo-ops of Princess Diana's collapsing marriage was that shot at the Taj Mahal, billed by romantics as "eternal …
LOOK BACK IN COMPASSION Â Â Â Â Â The Rattigan renaissance of the last few years is more than welcome:Â ever since Flare Path hit the West End fourteen years ago there seems…
THE GRANDEST OF GRIEFS Not Renaissance Mantua but New York a century past: smart bars and low dives, gangsters in fedoras. Why not ? In any world might be a lonely jokester, missing …
A short catch-up on one of the season's greats (was away..) Mark Strong is made to play great tragedy: a long powerful body,  controlled bleak intelligent  features.A figure from any a…
"…HOW I LEARNED TO STOP WORRYING AND LOVE THE BOMB" Â Â Â Â That was the subtitle, when exactly sixty years ago a shower of Oscars fell on Stanley Kubrick's brilliantly tasteles…
A HARD AND ICY WORLD   A 1970's Hull folksong chorus: "Next time you see a trawlerman on Hessle Road half tight " remember, o remember, the perils of that night". It was a tribut…
BROTHER, CHRISTIAN, WITCHFINDER  I reviewed this play about the Witchfinder General Matthew Hopkins last year, in Ipswich: I write only to add thoughts, now that it ha…
LEHMANS REVISITED The first time I saw Sam Mendes' production at the NT, I exclaimed that the evening had no right to be so much fun: three hours, three chaps in black frock coats, no so…
CHOSEN PEOPLE, CHOSEN LIVES   The saying goes "two Jews, three opinions", though some say that's an underestimate. Here are five people and innumerable opinions: two couples,�…
Sent from my iPad ZELDIN AGAIN I sometimes feel real sympathy (possibly unwanted) for actors who, trained and motivated to channel and express extreme and painful emotions, do their absolute…
POETRY AND PITY   Tremendous swagged, fringed, and roped retro curtains , the Gielgud looking much as it would 100 years ago when Sean O'Casey's most famous play reach…
SHARP SCRATCH? Â Â Crossing the Edgware Rd yesterday a shouting vaccine denier with a loudspeaker informed us all, stomping past in some sort of hurry, Â that vaccines were lies, in…
STONED STONES IN WEST WITTERING, 1967 Â Â Â At the end the 1200-strong crowd explodes to join a final roar of "Satisfaction" with the cast " lawyers, police, fans, three generatons …
VICTORIAN MISCHIEF WELL IN TUNE FOR TODAY . Do you want to see a senior Government minister entangled with a socially climbing financier and a fashion-greedy wife,  playing the …
