1,418 stories from theatrecat.com
LAURIE LEE, REMEMBERED AND REMEMBERING     A nine-part orchestra, gilded harp and flute at its apex; behind, monochrome photos of a century past show rural Gloucestershire,Â�…
POLITICAL ECHOES, CLASS ARROGANCE, THRILLS     The award for ExIt of the Year goes to the magnificent David Oyelowo, tearing up the central aisle of the Olivier in a f…
FIRST CLASS FROM CHRISTIE, LUDWIG AND BAILEY This could have been a bit of a groan, like the overcomplex Rebus Game Called Malice , also on tour . But actually it's a class act in ev…
FRIENDSHIP HITSÂ THE ROCKS OF TASTE : MISCHIEVOUS, SAD AND FUNNY Â Â Â Â Not everything that tours the country is Agatha Christie or star-fed froth: sometimes a serious emotio…
REACH FOR THE STARS: IT TAKES HARD GRAFT AND VODKA Any week now at the Gielgud we shall hear the famous drunken cry in Juno and the Paycock  "what is the stars?".  At the heart o…
DATING FOR A CONFUSED AGEÂ Â Â Â I have written before of the particular glee I feel when a brand-new and original show emerges , not from anxious corporate calculations but from…
WORTH ANOTHER VISIT? O YES It's a gig, it's a party, it's as  glorious as ever. Down on the floor the promenaders surge between changing stages as they rise and fall to create old Manhatt…
UPMARKET EDINBURGH ROCK, SORT OF   Sir Ian Rankin's Inspector Rebus accounts for a tenth of all crime bestsellers in the UK: the ancient mazes around Edinburgh Castle, set…
A MOMENT FOR REMEMBERING Â Â A desk, leather chairs, a heap of file boxes, a single sunflower in a pot. Â The century has turned, and it's the last day in the office for Simon Wiesen…
On this day of the report, a reminder of those two excellent verbatim plays from two stages of the inquiry. How theatre, with Nicholas Kent, reacted . There have been other plays about the e…
I IMPERSONATION, ILLUSION AND INTRIGUE Â Â Â Â Â Cottonwool clouds, a scatter of furniture and instruments, an ancient cine camera, a noble arch and some pillars and fake tree…
ROLL UP, ROLL UP… Â Â Â Â What sharper summer draw than "The Greatest Show On Earth" remembered within one of the smallest theatres? Â Jonathan O"Boyle's production has the p…
LAUNDRY, LECHERY, LADIES, LAUGHTER    if anyone is ever so impertinent as to demand an audition piece from the RSC-seasoned John Hodgkinson, I suggest he delivers " with…
A TALL TALE, A SHIMMERING MAGIC Of all Shakespeare's plays this is now the rarest staged, not without reason: some early scenes are co- written with a contemporary John Wilkins, its tale is …
 L'CHAIM ! THE VERY STUFF OF LIFE   Of course it helps to be under a real sky: a lone fiddler high above the cornfield scratches out the first lonely notes against the even…
Duke Theseus offers instructions, Act 1 Scene 1.   "Stir up the Athenian youth to merriments, Awake the pert and nimble spirit of mirth!" �…
AS LONG AS WE NEED IT… To do a timeworn musical, entangled in all- too -familiar earworms, you can either sharpen, challenge and update it  or lovingly polish the old machine. If y…
UP WHERE SHE BELONGS Imelda Staunton is a marvel, from Mama Rose in Gypsy to HMQ in The Crown. There is no lady of the stage more worthy of being greeted at the top of a Grand Staircase  …
GRISLY GLEE If there is any aspect of 21c Western culture  sorely in need of being laughed at,  it s ithe morbid fascination with police-procedural telly,, especially true-cri…
AN OVEN-READY MUSICAL, NEVER MUFFIN A MOMENT   As summer heats the merciless city, good to know that five minutes' south of London Bridge station is La France Profonde, a …
GEORGIANS IN THE PINK, AND SOMEWHAT PUNK     Sheridan's social satire from the 1770s hits the age of fake news, viral reputation-trashing and post-imperial embarra…
ON THE EVE OF THE ELECTION….    …I emerged onto the Cut in a grey afternoon blinking tears, unable to process having been made to cry by James Corden. He's been for me Â…
TEENAGE DREAMS, AND FAME AS NIGHTMARE Got to love the dedication of the Southwark: to mark its smaller-space production of Samantha Hurley's New York play about a demented teenage fan, it li…
A THING OF WONDER    People who saw Mnemonic at its origin 25 years ago still talk about it. A few say it changed them. It was a collaborative, at first wholly unscript…
A WARTIME SPRINGTIMEÂ Â Â Â It's not the reptile but the turtledove, as in the Song of Solomon "The time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in o…
