All stories by Libby Purves on BroadwayStars

Sunday, November 5, 2017

THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP Touring East by Libby Purves and Friends

LITTLE NELL, ON THE ROAD AGAIN     Of all Dickens’ works this – originally a serial so gripping that American readers rushed the docks for the new edition – is such a…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 11:52AM
Monday, October 30, 2017

THE SLAVES OF SOLITUDE Hampstead Theatre, NW3 by Libby Purves and Friends

THE LONELY HEARTS OF WARTIME   If you need relief from the current outbreak of extreme social primness about male behaviour, you’re going to love the bit with Clive Francis , as the e…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 09:11PM
Sunday, October 29, 2017

OF KITH AND KIN Bush Theatre W12 by Libby Purves and Friends

WHOSE BABY?    It is a brave theme that Chris Thompson – a former social worker – has chosen. It is also a darkly, and accidentally, topical one since a court case is still…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 12:37PM
Friday, October 27, 2017

RODELINDA Coliseum, WC2 by Libby Purves and Friends

GUEST REVIEWER CHARLOTTE VALORI LOSES HER HEART TO HOODLUMS Even ruthless, psychotic gangsters have to fall in love sometimes. And Rodelinda is all about what happens when the people at the …

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 05:16AM
Thursday, October 26, 2017

YOUNG MARX The Bridge, SE1 by Libby Purves and Friends

ROISTERING AND REVOLUTION   There is a nice contrarian quality about Nicholas Hytner’s choice for his first production, in the dramatically beautiful new theatre he founded with N…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 08:29PM
Tuesday, October 24, 2017

ANYTHING THAT FLIES Jermyn St, SW1 by Libby Purves and Friends

SHADOWS OF WAR AND LOSS   Not a good week for AA Milne. That “Goodbye Christopher Robin” film about his WW1 trauma comes out – then Philip Pullman sounds off scornfully about …

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 08:24PM

THE DREAM FACTORY Touring by Libby Purves and Friends

GUEST REVIEWER CHARLOTTE VALORI FINDS HALF-TERM HEAVEN AT NORWICH PUPPET THEATRE “Have you ever wondered where dreams come from? Or how they get into your head?” A thought-provok…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 09:50AM
Monday, October 23, 2017

INSIGNIFICANCE Arcola, E8 by Libby Purves and Friends

THE SCIENTIST AND THE SEX SYMBOL, IN A PARANOID WORLD     The uneasy 1950s: Albert Einstein is exiled in America and called to appear before the unAmerican Activities committee for…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 07:24PM
Sunday, October 22, 2017

FOR LOVE OR MONEY Touring by Libby Purves and Friends

CLUNTERING FLAPPYSKETS !  DON’T SMITTLE AND SKRYKE , IT’S BARRIE AGAIN…   By ‘eck, luv! They Northern Broadsides, they weren’t hid behind t’mangle when they wer…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 12:38PM
Friday, October 20, 2017

LABOUR OF LOVE Noel Coward Theatre WC1 by Libby Purves and Friends

A LESSON IN POLITICS, HUMANITY AND LOVE     The joyful thing about James Graham is that for all the playwright’s youth, diamond wit and forensic insight, there is a deep humankin…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 03:17AM
Thursday, October 19, 2017

A DAY BY THE SEA Southwark, SE1 by Libby Purves and Friends

AFTER THE WARS WERE OVER…     This is a lovely rediscovery, the kind of thing Two’s Company has repeatedly offered us in this enterprising theatre (we owe them those extraordin…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 02:58PM

THE LADY FROM THE SEA Donmar WC2 by Libby Purves and Friends

GUEST CRITIC  MICHAEL ADAIR  ENCOUNTERS IBSEN’S BRACING RAGE   Ibsen’s 1889 work, The Lady From the Sea has washed ashore at the Donmar in a new version written by Elinor Cook…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 03:24AM
Tuesday, October 17, 2017

ALBION Almeida N1 by Libby Purves and Friends

O ENGLAND IS A GARDEN…   There’s a lawn and a vast magnificent tree. In dim moonlight before the start a figure in khaki – could be any war – kneels to feel the eart…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 07:06PM
Monday, October 16, 2017

A WOMAN OF NO IMPORTANCE Vaudeville, WC1 by Libby Purves and Friends

OSCAR’S BACK!   IN THE VERY WEEK OF HIS BIRTHDAY…     A theatrical phenomenon of the 20th century is the way that some of the most perceptive parts for women were written by g…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 07:32PM
Friday, October 13, 2017

BEGINNING Dorfman, SE1 by Libby Purves and Friends

  LUKE JONES RELISHES ELDRIDGE ON MIDLIFE CHAOS   When the music stops and the lights click on, your first thought is ‘sweet Jesus what the hell went down at this party”? �…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 03:20AM
Tuesday, October 10, 2017

YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN Garrick SW1 by Libby Purves and Friends

A TRANSYLVANIAN TRANSPORT OF DELIGHT     Sometimes you just want a bit of fun. That is the moment to turn to Mel Brooks, master of daft parody. At 91, the master strode onstage ton…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 06:13PM

HEISENBERG : the Uncertainty Principle Wyndhams, WC1 by Libby Purves and Friends

A FINE ROMANCE?   A quick quantum-mechanics lesson (though this is not a play about science). The Heisenberg principle asserts that there is a limit to knowing what will happen to the p…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 02:47AM
Sunday, October 8, 2017

THE LIE Menier, SE1 by Libby Purves and Friends

FAITHFUL TO UNFAITHFULNESS, ZELLER SPARKLES AGAIN     This is a companion-piece to the stormingly funny, cruelly witty THE TRUTH: Florian Zeller, translated from the French with ve…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 02:08PM
Tuesday, October 3, 2017

THE NORMAN CONQUESTS Chichester Festival Theatre by Libby Purves and Friends

A JOYFUL JIGSAW: TABLE MANNERS, LIVING TOGETHER, ROUND AND ROUND THE GARDEN   In more rigorous technical times there was an art school exercise: “draw an imagined street-scene in pers…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 07:12PM
Friday, September 29, 2017

RULES FOR LIVING Royal, Northampton & Touring by Libby Purves and Friends

A FAMILY SITCOM UPS ITS GAME…   I didn’t much rate its premiere at the National in 2015, despite the achingly chic set I felt was “a kitchen-diner so huge and smart it makes David…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 04:19AM
Monday, September 25, 2017

INK up West Duke of York’s WC1 by Libby Purves and Friends

ON SEEING IT AGAIN…THE LATE EDITION IS BETTER STILL…     Nipping late into the Almedia after the opening,   I concurred with every word of Luke Jones’ review on theatrec…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 03:36PM
Friday, September 22, 2017

DIDO, QUEEN OF CARTHAGE RSC, Stratford Upon Avon by Libby Purves and Friends

CHARLOTTE VALORI FINDS HERE, TOO, ARE TEARS FOR THE MISFORTUNES OF TROY While there are many excellent reasons to read Virgil’s Aeneid from cover to cover, more than once, the fourth book …

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 03:28AM
Thursday, September 21, 2017

CORIOLANUS RSC, Stratford Upon Avon by Libby Purves and Friends

CHARLOTTE VALORI FINDS CLASS CIVIL WAR AT THE RSC Coriolanus doesn’t often hit the modern stage: its plot, a hymn to the necessary evil of educated patrician privilege in order to provide …

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 06:48PM
Monday, September 18, 2017

OSLO Lytellton, SE1 by Libby Purves and Friends

PEACE IN THEIR TIME…HOW TO DO IT   This is a three-hour historical political play about Middle East negotiations in the 1990s: and it is absolutely thrilling. Pins you to your seat wi…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 08:45PM
Friday, September 15, 2017

THE PEDLAR OF SWAFFHAM John Peel Arts Centre, IP14 by Libby Purves and Friends

CHARLOTTE VALORI FINDS DREAMS COMING TRUE IN MEDIEVAL NORFOLK In Norfolk, we tend to be quietly, fondly proud of our surroundings – with an emphasis on ‘quietly.’ The tradition of Norf…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 07:50PM

FIVE GUYS NAMED MOE – Marble Arch Theatre ★★★★ by Libby Purves

It’s a fast-paced, funny and stylish cabaret performance from an impressively talented cast, all of whom are terrific, and bringing a different style and flavour to a lesser- known back ca…

SOURCE: mytheatremates.com at 06:30AM
Tuesday, September 12, 2017

THE BLINDING LIGHT Jermyn St Theatre SW1 by Libby Purves and Friends

A PSYCHOTIC SAMSON AND HIS WOMEN   “There is no such thing as the imagination” says August Strindberg indignantly. “Things are real or they are not.”. Right now, holed up in a s…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 05:54PM

THE KNOWLEDGE Charing Cross theatre SW1 by Libby Purves and Friends

THE CABMAN’S PROGRESS   It couldn’t be better placed, here in the arches below Charing Cross station. Under the venerable rules of London licensed cabs – dating back to th…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 02:56AM
Friday, September 8, 2017

DOUBT – A PARABLE Southwark Playhouse, SE1 by Libby Purves and Friends

HARRIDAN OR HEROINE..?     The feminist “Bechdel Test” for fiction says that there must be conversations between two women which are not about men. John Patrick Shanley’s tig…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 05:22PM
Wednesday, September 6, 2017

FOLLIES – National Theatre ★★★★ by Libby Purves

Not a harsh word can be uttered about any of the big Sondheim numbers, or against the stellar cast – especially the women. Imelda Staunton, Janie Dee, Tracie Bennett, Josephine Barstow –…

SOURCE: mytheatremates.com at 07:26PM
Saturday, August 26, 2017

LOOT Park Theatre, N4 by Libby Purves and Friends

  THE BAD BOY WE NEEDED ONCE , AND STILL DO     The corpse is the talking point and to some extent the star. Certainly Anah Ruddin, hopping out of the coffin spry as a fox for…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 03:48AM