All stories by Friends on BroadwayStars

Saturday, June 14, 2025

ANNA KARENINA Chichester Festival Theatre by Libby Purves and Friends

A WILD NIGHT WITH COUNT TOLSTOY       Even those who haven’t read Tolstoy’s great novel  know about the train under which the despairing Anna will die.   So it  dominates from the …

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 11:37AM
Friday, June 13, 2025

TREASURE ISLAND New Wolsey, Ipswich & touring by Libby Purves and Friends

PHYSICAL, PIRATICAL, PLAYFUL       All aboard the Jolly Todger, where Long John Silver’s parrot Alexa (she comes from the Amazon, get it?) keeps accidentally  ordering unwanted Chinese…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 07:46AM
Monday, June 9, 2025

A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM Bridge Theatre, SE1 by Libby Purves and Friends

DREAM ON!      Five years on,  beyond Covid lockdowns and its magnificent Guys and Dolls, here again is the Bridge’s irresistible multi-mouse take on Shakespeare’s sunniest comedy of…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 05:44AM
Wednesday, June 4, 2025

IN PRAISE OF LOVE Orange Tree, Richmond by Libby Purves and Friends

WHY RATTIGAN COUNTS Quite a rare outing for this very late Terence Rattigan play, written after his star had fallen under the assault of mouthy Osborne, Amis and the  “angry young men” …

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 07:26AM
Saturday, May 31, 2025

MARRIAGE MATERIAL Lyric theatre, Hammersmith by Libby Purves and Friends

BROWN BRITISH LIVES, FROM ENOCH TO SUNAK  Sathnam Sanghera’s novel drew on his own life,  partly homage to Arnold Bennett and with some echoes of Priestley too, joined the fine chronicle…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 11:23AM
Thursday, May 29, 2025

just, in shame, for those of you who get the email by Libby Purves and Friends

It is indeed PLUTO not Apollo who rules the Underworld. Was tired. Apologies to all classicists.

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 06:53AM

THE FROGS Southwark Playhouse , SE1 by Libby Purves and Friends

SONDHEIM AND THE STYX   I last saw this 405BC  Greek classic in Spymonkey’s version and found it – sorry – unfroggettable.  Giant puppetry, a community chorus tap-dancing as frogs w…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 05:19AM
Thursday, May 15, 2025

THE DEEP BLUE SEA Theatre Royal, Haymarket by Libby Purves and Friends

DROWNING PASSION,   TIMELESS RESCUE Marvellous play, this: wrenches the heart out of you , patches it up and sets it back on the hard road of life and love.  It wrenched Terence Rattigan h…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 05:13AM

GIANT A few thoughts on revisiting by Libby Purves and Friends

I said it all at the Royal Court – https://theatrecat.com/2024/11/09/giant-royal-court-theatre/ – and it is an event not to miss, especially the way the world is in 2025.   Everythi…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 04:19AM
Wednesday, May 14, 2025

THE COMEDY ABOUT SPIES by Libby Purves and Friends

WELL WORTH THE MONEYPENNY        This is glorious: just what we all needed.   In the company’s spirit of never wasting a terrible joke, I absolutely Bond-ed to it.   Following Mischi…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 06:36AM
Tuesday, May 13, 2025

THE BRIGHTENING AIR Old Vic SE1 by Libby Purves and Friends

HOME AND FAMILY, BEAUTY AND SADNESS  Few days late to the party with this , poor old theatrecat having seemed to fall off the press list;  but very well worth the ticket (Old Vic pricing i…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 05:59AM
Friday, May 9, 2025

HERE WE ARE Lyttelton, SE1 by Libby Purves and Friends

AFFLUENZA APOCALYPSE       As Aubrey de Mandeville puts it in the great Antrobus books, “God, here’s a strange lozenge-shaped affair!”   Buñuel meets Monty Python,  courtesy of …

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 04:57AM
Thursday, May 8, 2025

NOISES OFF New Wolsey, Ipswich & touring by Libby Purves and Friends

 A MODERN CLASSIC DONE WITH VIGOUR   Michael Frayn’s play-about-actors is always welcome: a comic masterpiece and loving study in theatre’s own absurdity. The first act shows a final l…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 08:03AM
Friday, May 2, 2025

THE GOVERNMENT INSPECTOR.          Chichester Festival Theatre by Libby Purves and Friends

      A SATIRICAL WARNING FROM OLD UKRAINE       Not long ago a rompingly funny version of Gogol’s satire on official incompetence ran at Marylebone ( https://theatrecat.com/2024/05/…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 04:23AM
Wednesday, April 30, 2025

MY MASTER BUILDER Wyndham’s Theatre WC2 by Libby Purves and Friends

MATHILDE AND THE BUILDER (can he fix it? Probably not)          The set is glassand towering, city-chic backed by reeds and seashore; the figures before us NYC glamorous,  even when th…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 03:53AM
Tuesday, April 22, 2025

MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING Royal Shakespeare Theatre , Stratford upon Avon by Libby Purves and Friends

WINNERS, WAGS AND WRONGS Well, here’s a summer romp.    Hot on the heels of Tom Hiddleston  in a disco version up Drury Lane, here’s the RSC take on one of the sunniest  Shakespeare …

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 06:17PM
Friday, April 11, 2025

SHANGHAI DOLLS Kiln, NW6 by Libby Purves and Friends

TWO WOMEN, LONG YEARS ACROSS HALF A CONTINENT       1935: below projected headlines about Communists executed in Shanghai and the war between Japan and Red China comes an audition call fo…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 03:18AM
Thursday, April 10, 2025

THE PLAYS THE THING. wiltons music hall by Libby Purves and Friends

A HAMLET THAT STANDS ALONE “is it not monstrous that this player here,But in a fiction, in a dream of passion,Could force his soul so to his own conceitThat from her working all his visage…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 11:38AM

PIAF          Watermill, near Newbury by Libby Purves and Friends

RIEN TO REGRET!   This is a terrific, impassioned production: not only does Kimberley Sykes’ direction  and Michele Meazza’ s movement work keep it watchably, startlingly vigorous,   …

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 03:25AM
Wednesday, April 9, 2025

MANHUNT Royal Court, SW1 by Libby Purves and Friends

TRAGEDY WITHOUT A MORAL     Raoul Moat used  steroids and bulking-powder to armour himself in muscle,  nourished a bottomless well of grievance and self-pity , and imposed his needy will…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 05:08AM
Saturday, April 5, 2025

THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING OSCAR jermyn st theatre by Libby Purves and Friends

THE DEPTHS BELOW THE WIT     The plays,  ever revived, we know well;  the wit is often cited,  the old injustice of his downfall recreated in plays and films: most recently we’ve seen…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 08:30AM
Thursday, April 3, 2025

STILETTO Charing Cross Theatre WC1 by Libby Purves and Friends

VENEZIANA !      Buongiorno to Venice 1730,  a city stage topped with the golden winged lion of St Mark, arched and curtained and lit with candelabras .  Overhead a twelve-piece orchest…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 05:43AM
Tuesday, April 1, 2025

APEX PREDATOR Hampstead Theatre by Libby Purves and Friends

DARK FANGTASY IN A SCAFFOLDING CITY     For this compact and creepy little atmospheric treat, John Donnelly turns to vampires. That’s not a spoiler: the programme is full of learned stuf…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 05:59AM
Thursday, March 27, 2025

DEAR ENGLAND – the replay Olivier, SE1 by Libby Purves and Friends

BEYOND QATAR…            Two years ago this show  was a pleasure – (https://theatrecat.com/2023/06/21/dear-england-olivier-se1/)  , and now,  on the far side of more efforts and…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 02:14PM
Wednesday, March 26, 2025

RETROGRADE Apollo, W1 by Libby Purves and Friends

POWER, MAJESTY AND JUSTICE          Very good to see this intense three-hander  by Ryan Calais Cameron (who gave us “For Black Boys..” ) migrating to Shaftesbury Avenue with increa…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 06:46PM
Friday, March 21, 2025

PLAYHOUSE CREATURES. Orange Tree , Richmond by Libby Purves and Friends

THE 1660’s  AND ALL THAT:   THEATRE REBORN        Oddly, for theatrecat it’s the second day running of enliveningly energetic female history. After six women told the story of Mary…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 08:03PM

MARY AND THE HYENAS Wilton’s Music Hall, EC by Libby Purves and Friends

A ROUSING RACKET TO HONOUR A LIFE     Mary Wollstonecraft was a pearl  of the 18c Age of Reason, even more treasurable for having – as a woman – a harder time of it than all the Locke…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 08:19AM
Tuesday, March 18, 2025

DRACULA, A COMEDY OF TERRORS Menier, SE1 by Libby Purves and Friends

THE UNSERIOUS UNDEAD   “You will be horrified!” The five players announce, “- one way or another”. And with a flourish they hurl Bram Stoker’s book  behind them into Tijana Bjela…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 10:27AM
Thursday, March 13, 2025

FAREWELL MISTER HAFFMANN Park Theatre, N4 by Libby Purves and Friends

A STRANGE WARTIME FABLE OF LIFE, BIRTH AND JEWELLERY   In a little Jeweller’s shop in 1942  Paris Joseph Haffmann is making a deal with his young assistant Pierre.   He is Jewish, and h…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 04:41PM
Saturday, March 8, 2025

A TRYAL OF WITCHES Theatre Royal, Bury St Edmunds by Libby Purves and Friends

AN ANCIENT BRUTALITY, RIGHT HERE          Five women from the past mount the stage,  candlelit, to enact theterrible story of the 17c Suffolk witch-trials.   First there’s young Mar…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 04:25AM
Wednesday, March 5, 2025

EDWARD II Swan, Stratford upon Avon by Libby Purves and Friends

BRUTAL, VIOLENT AND TENDER     Around a King’s coffin surge personalities and politics , power plays and lineage .  A royal bier is loaded with  crown and jewelled cross, around it cou…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 06:30PM