Monday, October 10, 2022
RETURN OF A WILD AND QUESTIONING PLAY This is the return of Robert Icke’s modern version of Schnitzler’s 1912 play – details below, as laid out in part of my original Almeida r…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 06:07AMFriday, October 7, 2022
A WARNING FOR ALL TIMES This is the big one. It’s the National Theatre at its strongest: unapologetic, classic, unsparing, gripping, impassioned. Here’s the heavy art…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 06:17AMThursday, October 6, 2022
THERAPISTS AS HUMANS Georgina Burns is a trained and experienced NHS therapist, now with Hampstead support a playwright. So, unlike most other writers tempted by the theatricality of…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 01:34PMWednesday, October 5, 2022
A MODEST AND REMORSEFUL SELF-REBUKE There’s a curious outbreak of reparations going on. The Old Vic, which binned Into the Woods in outrage at Terry Gilliam’s reportedly inc…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 05:48PMTuesday, October 4, 2022
A GOTHIC SORROW IN OLD BOSTON When you say you’re off to a Suffolk village hall to see a tiny company – best known for its mini-pantos – doing a dramatised tribute to Edgar Allan Po…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 09:23AMFriday, September 30, 2022
AMBITION , DISGRACE, RUIN, WOMEN Heavy footfalls pace overhead, enervating, raising anxiety. Anna Fleischle’s galleried grey set is half Scandi-minimo-chic, half penitentiary. Downstairs…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 02:44AMThursday, September 29, 2022
GLORIOUS AS EVER Millions know it by now, but in case like my enthralled companions last night you aren’t among them, grant me a moment or skip the the penultimate paragraph…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 05:08AMWednesday, September 28, 2022
WISHFUL DELUSIONS IN A MIDDLE AGED DOLDRUM Susan finds herself in mid-life with a dull clerical husband (Nigel Lindsay really enjoying it) , obsessed with his dreary parish history pamphle…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 06:23PMFriday, September 23, 2022
LORD, WHAT FOOLS WE LIBERALS BE… In a beanbagged, bright-coloured primary school in Berkeley, California, its executive committee of five seek consensus over reclassifying the dr…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 07:37PMREFINED AND FEATHER-DUSTED: CRUELTY IN THE SUBURBS We are in a suburban drawing-room in 1926, which some characters will still call the “parlour”. Near the front, close enough to t…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 05:03AMThursday, September 15, 2022
A CENTURY SURVIVED It is no bad week to be contemplating the Jewish custom of sitting shiva: spending seven days on a hard wooden bench when “you laugh, you cry, you argue” in tri…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 05:22PMWednesday, September 14, 2022
EVEN A SNAIL WILL REACH ITS HOME That’s a Nigerian saying, apparently. But shiny though the shell is, Richard Eyre’s play becomes a frustrating stew of ideas, attitud…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 06:39PMTuesday, September 13, 2022
SAYERS, SAYING IT FOR WORKING WOMEN Here’s a treat: first half in Venice (with a glorious Canaletto backdrop) and the second, after some elegant Jermyn set-changing, in a London playw…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 06:50PMSaturday, September 3, 2022
GUEST REVIEWER CHARLOTTE VALORI FINDS SOME INTERESTING THREADS SLIGHTLY UNRAVELLED AT GRIMEBORN Fringe opera festivals sometimes give us a chance to see new work in progress – i.e. unfinis…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 06:15AMWednesday, August 24, 2022
A SPIKY AND SPECTACULAR DELIGHT Humanity in every century has needed to plunge into the dark forests, questing or fleeing, finding wonders or wolves: it’s in Dan…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 07:04PMThursday, August 18, 2022
IT’S BACK: A NEW DIRECTION HOME This humbly immense, uniquely created show threw me for a loop five summers ago. It’s back on tour, via Oliviers and Broadway awards, with its…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 07:47AMGUEST REVIEWER CHARLOTTE VALORI GETS SWEPT UP IN THE MAGIC, THE MUSIC AND THE META Opera Alegria’s vivacious foray into Mozart’s Magic Flute for Grimeborn takes its inspiration from the …
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 07:00AMThursday, August 11, 2022
VOICES FROM THE GRAVE AND THE CELLAR, UNIGNORABLE Timely, enterprising, emotionally shattering, politically shaming. These two plays were both both first born at the time of …
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 05:20PMTuesday, August 9, 2022
CARRY ON. OR, TO PUT IT ANOTHER WAY, KEEP MESSIN’ ABOUT… My first concern was, will they dare give us the sadness? Kenneth Williams was a comic marvel self-created, a versatile act…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 05:40PMWednesday, August 3, 2022
GLITTER AND HARD GRAFT A basement hung with glitter strings, a small moody band with earthy bass, a bar: few better places to revel in torch songs, deep-dug anthems and memory o…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 06:52PMMUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. Lyttelton, SE1 SHAKESPEARE IN THE SWING AGE A star danced, and under it was Simon Godwin’s joyful, 1930s Riviera production born. Quite apart fro…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 12:47PM STARRY SISTERHOOD IN OLD VIENNA Identical twin girls, separated at birth in their parents divorce, meet at summer camp and resolve to swop places. Remember “The Parent Trap�…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 05:13AMSaturday, July 30, 2022
THE SCOTTISH PLAY ON ANCIENT TURF “This castle hath a pleasant seat..” Indeed it does: Red Rose Chain’s traditional outdoor show now lives alongside the mysterious mounds wh…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 07:40AMWednesday, July 27, 2022
101 DALMATIANS Open Air Theatre, Regent’s Park NW1 BARKING IN THE PARK Wooof! The OAT’s new show, bounding and cavorting along under the direction of that am…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 09:18AMTuesday, July 26, 2022
CHARLIE IS , ONCE AGAIN, OUR DANCING DARLING… Foiled by heatwave and trains, I made it six days later to the summer’s highlight, the glorious absurdity of this wickedly succ…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 06:35AMSaturday, July 23, 2022
Twice lately, under tall oaks and pines on what is becoming known as Suffolk’s mini-Minack, I have encountered touring opera companies doing wonderfully, relaxedly, professionall…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 06:21AMThursday, July 14, 2022
SCRAMBLE! CHOCKS AWAY! Who knew that Caroline Quentin could achieve (almost) the splits, while strumming a ukulele? Or that that Richard Bean and Chris Oliver – who a decade ago…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 07:01PMDECK-LICIOUS, DELOVELY, SAILING BACK IN STYLE A year on, and after a partly recast tour, SS America drops anchor back in the Barbican and in style. Actually feels even better than before. …
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 05:45AMTuesday, July 12, 2022
MOTHER RUSSIA AND ITS MEN Here’s a fresh history play: confrontational , shocking, classic in its focus on vast flawed characters and pretty close to documented – and very re…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 07:49PMFriday, July 8, 2022
MOB JUSTICE, NO JUSTICE There are women who, seeing a friend in an almost-good outfit, cannot help reaching out: adjusting a belt , removing an ill-judged frill, suggesting a hat.�…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 11:42AMThursday, July 7, 2022
STEP BACK TO THE SIXTIES SIMPLICITIES… Once again , off to this most enticing dinner-theatre embedded in a historic treasure, its big real watermill whirling away in the bar and the …
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 04:35PM 
