Monday, February 9, 2015
THIRTY YEARS OF TURBULENCE: A MARRIAGE There is no snake. It’s a nickname for “Belinda”, the female half of Clara Brennan’s new two-hander, a 90-minute portrait of an 30-year marriag…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 06:04PMSaturday, February 7, 2015
MARTYRDOM, MONARCHY, AND MOVING ON Summer1561. Queen Elizabeth is coming to town: feasts are prepared, the people excited, and Peter Moone the tailor is preparing a play with his fellow work…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 09:06AMFriday, February 6, 2015
AN OLD FIGHT HONOURED Sick of the patriarchy, girls? Take a safari to 1908 and visit the real thing. Witness the elephantine authority of Hugo deMullin, last of a line of beautifully pointle…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 05:27AMThursday, February 5, 2015
NOT EXACTLY SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST… 12 years ago John Darwin paddled out into the North Sea, faking his death for the insurance. He and his wife – who hid him for a while in a s…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 07:20AMTuesday, February 3, 2015
STOPPARD’S MASTERWORK ON THE ROAD AGAIN It’s a play of dazzling ideas, scientific and philosophical: Tom Stoppard at his most provocative. In 1993 the NT production won an Olivier; for s…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 06:51PMTHE POOTERS RIDE AGAIN, PUB STYLE I had some misgivings, since I know the 1892 book by George and Weedon Grossmithalmost by heart: born in an age whose Punch-ish humour does not always chime…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 01:54PMMonday, February 2, 2015
A SHIPLOAD OF DELIGHT What can I say? Daniel Evans’ production is delicious, it’s de-lovely, a de-lirious succession of treats. There is always a fizzing joyful absurdity about Cole Port…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 06:55PMFriday, January 30, 2015
REMEMBERING REG…A REVIEW WORTH A REMIX Thought I should see how it feels in a bigger theatre, after writing at the Donmar that Kevin Elyot’s 1994 play is “pretty mu…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 05:04AMThursday, January 29, 2015
OH FOR HEAVEN’S SAKE… Sometimes in the reviewing business there’s an almost irresoluble conflict between detached appreciation and wincing personal indifference: a tempt…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 06:16AMWednesday, January 28, 2015
SIR TOM STOPPARD’S NEW PLAY. WOW. Is there more to human beings than organic goo? Can brain imaging explain why we judge, reason, imagine, generate metaphor and language? That is th…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 06:02PMTuesday, January 27, 2015
THE MUGHAL EMPIRE: MURDER, FAITH AND FAMILY OK, I admit it, I feared “Important and Worthy”. Or, possibly, important-worthy-yet-picturesque. A reasonable, if ungenerous fear,…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 06:25PMMonday, January 26, 2015
A TERROR AND A TRIBUTE “May the Master of Mercy shelter them in the shadow of his wings”. A Holocaust prayer is on a slip in the programme for this eve of the Auschwitz liberati…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 06:46PMSaturday, January 24, 2015
Damon Albarn's musical adaptation of Lewis Carroll's story, Wonder.land, will remind us that its fantasy is genuinely timeless, writes Libby Purves
SOURCE: The Telegraph at 05:00PMFriday, January 23, 2015
BRAVE, BARNSTORMING AND CERTAINLY NOT BAD With Holocaust Memorial day imminent, the Paris murders fresh in mind and anti-Semitism rising across Europe, can you really put on a …
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 06:42PMThursday, January 22, 2015
THE BIRTH OF THE BOMB This is what the RSC is for. Not mere Bardolatry, but to bring new work illuminated by the craft, humanity and wisdom which comes to those steeped in Shak…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 07:55PMBLAST OFF INTO THE PAST… Repolarize the rockanthemizer! Shakespearianize the iamb-ometer, fasten your retrocamp ironido-nebulized harness and prepare to be utterly weight…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 09:02AMTuesday, January 20, 2015
MURDER IN THE DARK The gorgeous giltwood brooding atmosphere of the new Wanamaker playhouse has seen comedy in its candlelight – the bonkers Knight of the Burning Pestl…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 06:04PMMonday, January 19, 2015
A CULPABLE, CLOWNISH WASTE OF DAVOS WEEK This week sees the World Economic Forum in Davos. Today Oxfam said that 1% of the world’s people own nearly half its wealth. Tax havens – man…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 05:10PMFriday, January 16, 2015
IN WHICH YOUR REVIEWER CRACKS UP ENTIRELY Tears are strange. They can fill the eye when witnessing not horror or sadness, but a sudden kindness. It is a kind of happy sorrow: m…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 06:08AMWednesday, January 14, 2015
AND YOU THOUGHT SPIDERMAN WAS CREEPY… Imagine a rock-opera mashup of Frankenstein, Pygmalion and Dracula, hijacked by Marvel Comics and dressed up with cartoonish 1950s small…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 06:22PMTuesday, January 13, 2015
TEENAGE KICKS AND SORROWS In the most genuinely engaging sequences of this odd improv-based show, two of the ten-strong cast get a mat out and wrestle, struggling to rip off one ano…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 05:06PMMonday, January 12, 2015
A FABULOUS FANDANGO OF FEMALE FURY… Sing to the lunatic moon: Hispanic hysteria, hilarity, tangled lives, 48 hours of Madrid madness. I had my doubts about this one, as did many…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 07:56PMFriday, January 9, 2015
SCARS OF THE SOVIET IN A MOSCOW HOME There’s a lovely, very Russian moment in Moses Raine’s play (in from the Old Red Lion and directed by his sister Nina, author of Tig…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 12:56PMThursday, January 8, 2015
DROWNING NOT WAVING – TWO WOMEN ADRIFT Lancashire Ivy is waiting for a bus to Manchester, refined Joan for a taxi to a psychiatric clinic. Neither is happy, and nor are t…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 05:44PMSaturday, December 27, 2014
The First World War centenary has been a fine year for the stage, which breathed life into a shattered generation, writes Libby Purves
SOURCE: The Telegraph at 02:35PMTuesday, December 16, 2014
Shabba-dabba-doo-wop! What a glorious evening. Grownup, dryly hilarious, sublimely jazzy. Josie Rourke’s Donmar walks away with the palm for the season’s top show. Or perhaps sash…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 06:39PMMonday, December 15, 2014
THE MERCHANT OF VEGAS RIDES AGAIN Three years ago Rupert Goold reimagined Venice for the RSC, taking ‘casino capitalism’ literally, setting it amid decadent gilt arches and roul…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 06:52PMSUPERBLY SILLY BUT FAR FROM ELEMENTARY In a beguiling 221b Baker Street set, referencing clockwork and tyrannized over by a brassbound Victorian video-countdown, Watson is talk…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 04:08AMSunday, December 14, 2014
MINCE PIES AND MIDLANDS MERRIMENT I caught this in its heartland, at the MAC in Birmingham. Half of the audience were clearly experienced followers of Janice Connolly’s creat…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 12:00PMFriday, December 12, 2014
ANIMATED, ANIMATING, ADMIRABLE, ADORABLE Let’s be honest. It’s nearly Christmas. You could flinch at the thought of staggering in after a day of guilty shopping to fac…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 05:42PMThursday, December 11, 2014
This is not a review, because the show is not offered for review until its transfer to Birmingham in January. I went because I had heard about its development. And hell, Rula Lenska is a sec…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 06:07PM 
