1,405 stories from theatrecat.com
REFLECTIONS ON A FAT KNIGHT Due to train disruption " speak not of overhead wires and wind " I had to bail out at the interval, from Robert Icke's epic three and a half hour modern-d…
WHY HALESWORTH MATTERS TO THE NATIONAL DRAMATIC ECOSYSTEM Â Â The other day I did an overview-preview from some dress rehearsals at the INK short play festival in Suffolk (scroll below)…
   CROOKBACK DICK REIMAGINED      Saving Richard III from Shakespeare's calumny seems to have a particular appeal to women: probably because around his accessi…
DIVING ABOUT IN A UNIQUE SHORT-PLAY FESTIVAL      Join me on a parked Hoppa minibus where Henry VIII is chatting up a new Jane. She is not impressed by the Tudor-Tinde…
HOLINESS IN THE WHALE     It pretty much had me harpooned at the words "Call me Ishmael".  As Mark Arends' earnestly naive schoolteacher speaks the opening lines and …
WUTHERING SIBLINGS    Grace Smart the designer sets the scene as we settle in with a sweet miniature moor, all harebells and heather and cloddy bits of earth. But it rises in …
THE GAME'S AFOOT. EVENTUALLY. Nick Lane's adaptation of Conan Doyle's late, broodingly complicated novel has met many huzzahs from Sherlock Holmes fans, previously here, on tour and stre…
DOSTOYEVSKY IN DALTON
   "These days" says the man on the empty stage, "people are precious to me, even when they insult me. I have woken up". His stark features d…
CAMPUS RITES AND WRONGS Sometimes, I do like a stage set you could cosily move right into. Paul Farnsworth's is a nice evocation of a Harvard professor's study: shelves and panelling…
HOMAGE TO THE FIRST CELEBRITY DIVA     Last time theatre's pre-Victorian glory days " silk breeches, rowdy audiences and Garrickian hamming " were celebrated on this s…
HOW TO WASTE A STELLAR CAST    Sheridan Smith is not only a box-office draw but a rare and genuine talent: two decades a star on screen and stage, musicals and drama:…
MAGIC . ALWAYS BETTER WHEN DISASTROUS.      God bless Mischief Theatre. Eleven years ago this coming May I saw THE PLAY THAT GOES WRONG in the tiny downstairs space at…
KIDS WITH A KICK IN THEM Â Â Â Â There's been an interlockof themes in theatre lately: DEAR ENGLAND at the NT displaying Gareth Southgate's work in fostering the openness and emot…
HOPE, HEART, HARDSHIP Â Â Brian Friel's 1979 remarkable play stands on its own, offering a kind of depressive beauty: beneath the story of one ramshackle troubled couple it is a meditat…
RO$$INI BONANZA! Guest reviewer Dean Thompson finds much in a small space… Opera lovers or new to opera will love this! So, get on your horse and gallop over to see Charles Court O…
A CELLULOID INVASION  This was at first a startling choice: Eastern Angles' tradition is generally, as it heroically tours night-by-night across the eastern counties,  to pro…
BOARDROOM BEASTS Â Â This may break all records for the smartest costumes ever at the Southwark's smallest space: six irreproachable business suits, including two sets of tweed-chic fe…
A FRESH CAST, ONE YEAR ONÂ Can it really be a whole year since, with theatre still gallantly recovering from Covid, Nicholas Hytner rolled the dice and opted to offer us some razzle dazzl…
PLANT FOOD PEOPLE FROM THE PAST     I missed this first time round, due to the babysitting years, so it was grand to catch up. It's a 1980's revival, a spoof on 19…
A MAVERICK MINISTER     There's another play to be written about Aneurin Bevan, stubborn founder of the National Health Service: perhaps a more contentious one, or a fant…
ONCE BRITTEN TWICE SHY?   The late David Hemmings, one of Britten's mentored, worshipped boy sopranos, was unforgettable aged 12 as the original MIles in the composer's terrif…
THE WINDRUSH WARRIORS    Moses' crowded bedsit is where the new ones turn up off the boat train, wanting to know how to do London; he can tell them names like Clapham…
GUEST REVIEWER AND OPERABUFF DEAN THOMPSON LOVES ENO'S LATEST Ingenious " Dazzling " Hilarious! If you haven't seen The Magic Flute before, then this is the one to see; if you have see…
CORONATION, COMMISSION, COLLABORATION       You need not be a selfish pig to be an artist of genius, but there's no question that it often helps. Occurs, anywa…
AN ATTIC WARNING    Fasten your seat belts for a bracingly odd German play by Marius von Mayenburg; hold on tight as it veers in a switchback weirdness, which I for one en…
