Friday, November 15, 2019
BEN DOWELL AND DAUGHTER POP WITH PLEASURE AT ITS PEP.. It has floated in one the chilly autumn breeze like a much-needed blast of summer sunshine. Yes, this Mary Poppins is as supercalifragi…
Linked From theatrecat.com at 01:08PMWednesday, November 13, 2019
A BIG APPLE ROMANCE WITH CRUNCH How romantic New York is to the British heart! From Superman to Friends we seem to know it, from Elf and 34th Street (not to mention the Pogues…
Linked From theatrecat.com at 01:52PMWednesday, October 30, 2019
NORTHERN GUEST REVIEWER HELEN GASKELL TIRES OF THE RELENTLESS GRIT… A family of five, scattered across the North of England, are brought together by tragedy. The play shows a picture …
Linked From theatrecat.com at 12:19PMARROGANCE, ANGER , INDIA’S SHAME Hema’s is a house of women now. The old grandmother is in bed below the tall screen doors , feeding crows who move shadow-shapes behind…
Linked From theatrecat.com at 07:16AMTuesday, October 29, 2019
GUEST CRITIC BEN DOWELL DOES NOT HAVE A GOOD NIGHT OUT What a strange evening this is. Young director Tinuke Craig has taken Maxim Gorky’s 1911 play (there was a revision in 1935 but s…
Linked From theatrecat.com at 06:21AMThursday, October 24, 2019
RENAISSANCE RUTTING, VENUS AND VANITIES Sandro Botticelli, he makes clear to us at the start, plans to tell his version. He’s Dickie Beau: skinny and swaggeringly queeny in blac…
Linked From theatrecat.com at 07:54PMIT TAKES TWO… Here’s a sharp eyed little gem about coupledom and the wary, fretful road towards parenthood in an age of easy contraception and illimitable expectation…
Linked From theatrecat.com at 04:47AMWednesday, October 23, 2019
TWO CURATORS, ACROSS EIGHTY YEARS The little Swan , a jewel-box of a theatre, often sees the new plays the RSC does best: immaculate technique and careful clarity elucidating complex…
Linked From theatrecat.com at 03:34AMSunday, October 20, 2019
INSPECTOR GOOLE, BACK BACK ON THE ROAD Below, edited, is my original London review of this remarkable production. This new tour deserves to be marked, though: regarding the t…
Linked From theatrecat.com at 05:46AMFriday, October 18, 2019
A COOL EYE ON SHATTERED LIVES Of all the well known flaws of our criminal justice system, one of the most glaring is how badly it fits women – though they are only around…
Linked From theatrecat.com at 04:44AMThursday, October 10, 2019
THE DARK AND THE CRAZY This is – for us anyway – the first production in the Trump era of this savage musical: a revue reimagining of all the attempts, successful or not,…
Linked From theatrecat.com at 05:03AMWednesday, October 2, 2019
PEOPLE OF THE BLITZ Sarah Waters’ best novel, evoking lives during and after the London Blitz, was told backward in time. It is much the same way, indeed, as we meet real people…
Linked From theatrecat.com at 01:41PMTHE LOW DISHONEST DECADE… It’s always intimate, the Jermyn,. We’re in an autumn garden, apples on the ground and fading roses on the wall; birdsong, and a tea table set defia…
Linked From theatrecat.com at 06:55AMTuesday, October 1, 2019
A COLLIDING WORLD Couldn’t miss this: for two years as a teenager (Dad in the Jo’burg Embassy) I lived alongside the frightened, arrogant paranoia of white South Africa un…
Linked From theatrecat.com at 05:18PMMonday, September 30, 2019
15 CHARACTERS OBJECTING TO AN AUTHOR.. The Jane Austen industry never flags, in tribute or in parody. You can barely throw a bonnet without hitting an Austentatious improv, popcor…
Linked From theatrecat.com at 06:45PMFriday, September 27, 2019
KING JOHN WAS NOT A GOOD MAN… Maybe we should stick to AA Milne’s version? “King John was not a good man He had his little ways And sometimes no one spoke to him For days an…
Linked From theatrecat.com at 09:18AMWednesday, September 25, 2019
GLOBAL AND GENDER POLITICS IN PERFECT MINIATURE A glass conference-centre in the host nation France; a visiting US President avid for airstrikes after a terrorist outrage , deman…
Linked From theatrecat.com at 05:34PMWednesday, September 18, 2019
GUEST REVIEWER BEN DOWELL SAYS HANKS FOR THE MEMORY , AND BRAVELY FACES THE WEIRDNESS This is a lavish revival of the 1996 musical version of the 1988 Tom Hanks fantasy comedy, complete w…
Linked From theatrecat.com at 07:02AMTuesday, September 10, 2019
THIRTY YEARS LATER AND STILL FURIOUS: HEDDA’S BACK Last night, while Parliament spiralled into disorderly, resentful confusion and Mr Bercow dramatically put an end to himself a…
Linked From theatrecat.com at 04:41PMTuesday, September 3, 2019
OLD TIMES, OLD SORROWS: BEFORE THE RAINBOW With Parliament in uproar upriver , the NT hit a luckily apt moment to stage Simon Woods’ first play and promote it as a “witty and…
Linked From theatrecat.com at 06:32PMSaturday, August 31, 2019
GUEST REVIEWER CHARLOTTE VALORI SWOONS OVER SWASHBUCKLING AT GRIMEBORN Director Emma Jude Harris “couldn’t believe her luck” when she discovered Cabildo, the only opera by pioneering…
Linked From theatrecat.com at 04:10AMFriday, August 30, 2019
BITTERLY BRITISH It was a good mix of ages in the Curve audience, so perhaps a public service to remind the rising generation, awash in Brexindignation, that Utterly-Despairi…
Linked From theatrecat.com at 01:05PMGUEST REVIEWER CHARLOTTE VALORI FINDS JOPLIN TROUBLINGLY FUN Scott Joplin was rightly proud of Treemonisha, an opera for which he wrote both libretto and score; it was never fully staged in …
Linked From theatrecat.com at 04:14AMThursday, August 29, 2019
GUEST REVIEWER CHARLOTTE VALORI MARVELS AT THE OPERATIC POTENTIAL OF SIGNDANCE The double bill of Gillian Whitehead’s Hotspur with Schoenberg’s great Modernist Pierrot Lunaire is the fir…
Linked From theatrecat.com at 08:23PMTuesday, August 27, 2019
A STRANGE RESURRECTION, BETWEEN WARS A red sun was setting beyond the trees as we gathered around a square, isolated house in the golden-hour splendour. Here the land rises abo…
Linked From theatrecat.com at 07:42AMSunday, August 25, 2019
GUEST REVIEWER CHARLOTTE VALORI FINDS DIMNESS RATHER THAN DAWN AT GRIMEBORN If Aylin Bozok is directing anything at Grimeborn, I always try to go. I’ve been absolutely blown away by her pa…
Linked From theatrecat.com at 08:05AMSaturday, August 24, 2019
GUEST REVIEWER CHARLOTTE VALORI FINDS NOT MUCH UNFOLDING AT GRIMEBORN I have to admit – I’m a sucker for a bit of rarefied Japanese elegance on stage in almost any context: the very ment…
Linked From theatrecat.com at 04:10AMThursday, August 22, 2019
GUEST REVIEWER BEN DOWELL SEES A GOOD SUBJECT NOT QUITE GETTING THERE… The trafficking of human beings – 7,000 identified in the UK in 2018 – is a disgusting blight on our country…
Linked From theatrecat.com at 12:05PMWednesday, August 21, 2019
A GRIPPING PIECE OF HISTORY In 1944 the adventurous British director Peggy Webster cast the first black Othello in the USA, where for a white woman even to walk with …
Linked From theatrecat.com at 11:34AMThursday, August 15, 2019
GUEST REVIEWER CHARLOTTE VALORI GETS INTO THE BLITZ SPIRIT WITH OPERA ALEGRIA AT GRIMEBORN Rossini’s Le Comte Ory is a flirtatious farce in which a naughty young Count drives everyone de…
Linked From theatrecat.com at 01:37AMFriday, August 9, 2019
A YOUTHFUL HALLELUJAH ANother fascinating London premiere for Two’s Company and the Finborough, buried for nearly half a century after one brief 1970 tour . As Philip …
Linked From theatrecat.com at 07:52AM 
