
LOOK BEYOND THE LETTUCE Â Â Â It is a tribute to Greg Wilkinson's monologue play that I had not previously seen the rise and fall of Liz Truss as having a gripping dramatic line.Â…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 08:31PM[SHARE]HIGH SPIRITS, HIGH COMEDY, EVEN HIGHER HEELS    Elton John, who jumped at the idea of writing the music, calls the 2006 film a favourite; many of us nod in blissful agreement…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 07:55PM[SHARE]C'EST MAGNIFIQUE !     Napoleon, defeated at Trafalgar, vows revenge on Britain and its "bootlicking monoglot monarchists". Stalking around in breeches and bicorn h…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 05:26AM[SHARE]TA-RAN-TA-RA !  Mike Leigh, a veteran better known for films, Abigail's Party and theatrical experiments with scriptless rehearsal, is also a dedicated devotee of the utterly scr…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 03:55AM[SHARE]THE COOLEST CAT IN LONDON. AND SOME RATS.      Here's your traditional Christmas outing, proper panto. No rackety popstar hype or tedious suggestive jokes from wor…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 01:27PM[SHARE]GALSWORTHY ? WELL WORTH SEEING   With late Victorians, there's plenty to bite on: a rising bourgeoisie aflame with parvenu ambition, piety , pannier skirts ,patriarch…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 01:05PM[SHARE]WISDOM IN A LIFE BACKWARDS Â Â Â Forget the awful fim made from Scott Fitzgerald's story about a life lived backwards " a man born in old age, working towards youth and infancy in re…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 09:44AM[SHARE]Â A JOURNEY OF JOURNEYS Â Â Â A map is a lovely thing, but sometimes practically speaking a diagram is better. And can also be lovely: especially when its useful elegance has beco…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 01:04PM[SHARE]THE BIG RATHER UNFRIENDLY GIANT    Tom Maschler, legendary publisher and once a Kindertransport child, summed up the appeal of Roald Dahl: his stories offer…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 08:55AM[SHARE]1648, Agra: marble and murder, a terrible beauty   One of the worst photo-ops of Princess Diana's collapsing marriage was that shot at the Taj Mahal, billed by romantics as "eternal …
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 08:24AM[SHARE]LOOK BACK IN COMPASSION Â Â Â Â Â The Rattigan renaissance of the last few years is more than welcome:Â ever since Flare Path hit the West End fourteen years ago there seems…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 04:45PM[SHARE]THE GRANDEST OF GRIEFS Not Renaissance Mantua but New York a century past: smart bars and low dives, gangsters in fedoras. Why not ? In any world might be a lonely jokester, missing …
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 07:11AM[SHARE]A short catch-up on one of the season's greats (was away..) Mark Strong is made to play great tragedy: a long powerful body,  controlled bleak intelligent  features.A figure from any a…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 01:37PM[SHARE]"…HOW I LEARNED TO STOP WORRYING AND LOVE THE BOMB" Â Â Â Â That was the subtitle, when exactly sixty years ago a shower of Oscars fell on Stanley Kubrick's brilliantly tasteles…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 07:26PM[SHARE]A HARD AND ICY WORLD   A 1970's Hull folksong chorus: "Next time you see a trawlerman on Hessle Road half tight " remember, o remember, the perils of that night". It was a tribut…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 05:27AM[SHARE]BROTHER, CHRISTIAN, WITCHFINDER  I reviewed this play about the Witchfinder General Matthew Hopkins last year, in Ipswich: I write only to add thoughts, now that it ha…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 05:54PM[SHARE]LEHMANS REVISITED The first time I saw Sam Mendes' production at the NT, I exclaimed that the evening had no right to be so much fun: three hours, three chaps in black frock coats, no so…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 05:10AM[SHARE]CHOSEN PEOPLE, CHOSEN LIVES   The saying goes "two Jews, three opinions", though some say that's an underestimate. Here are five people and innumerable opinions: two couples,…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 01:58PM[SHARE]Sent from my iPad ZELDIN AGAIN I sometimes feel real sympathy (possibly unwanted) for actors who, trained and motivated to channel and express extreme and painful emotions, do their absolute…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 04:00AM[SHARE]POETRY AND PITY   Tremendous swagged, fringed, and roped retro curtains , the Gielgud looking much as it would 100 years ago when Sean O'Casey's most famous play reach…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 01:46AM[SHARE]SHARP SCRATCH? Â Â Crossing the Edgware Rd yesterday a shouting vaccine denier with a loudspeaker informed us all, stomping past in some sort of hurry, Â that vaccines were lies, in…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 07:02AM[SHARE]STONED STONES IN WEST WITTERING, 1967 Â Â Â At the end the 1200-strong crowd explodes to join a final roar of "Satisfaction" with the cast " lawyers, police, fans, three generatons …
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 06:33PM[SHARE]VICTORIAN MISCHIEF WELL IN TUNE FOR TODAY . Do you want to see a senior Government minister entangled with a socially climbing financier and a fashion-greedy wife,  playing the …
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 04:51AM[SHARE]LAURIE LEE, REMEMBERED AND REMEMBERING Â Â Â Â A nine-part orchestra, gilded harp and flute at its apex; behind, monochrome photos of a century past show rural Gloucestershire,Â…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 03:21AM[SHARE]POLITICAL ECHOES, CLASS ARROGANCE, THRILLS     The award for ExIt of the Year goes to the magnificent David Oyelowo, tearing up the central aisle of the Olivier in a f…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 06:57AM[SHARE]FIRST CLASS FROM CHRISTIE, LUDWIG AND BAILEY This could have been a bit of a groan, like the overcomplex Rebus Game Called Malice , also on tour . But actually it's a class act in ev…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 02:30AM[SHARE]FRIENDSHIP HITSÂ THE ROCKS OF TASTE : MISCHIEVOUS, SAD AND FUNNY Â Â Â Â Not everything that tours the country is Agatha Christie or star-fed froth: sometimes a serious emotio…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 10:59AM[SHARE]REACH FOR THE STARS: IT TAKES HARD GRAFT AND VODKA Any week now at the Gielgud we shall hear the famous drunken cry in Juno and the Paycock  "what is the stars?".  At the heart o…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 07:49PM[SHARE]DATING FOR A CONFUSED AGEÂ Â Â Â I have written before of the particular glee I feel when a brand-new and original show emerges , not from anxious corporate calculations but from…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 03:57AM[SHARE]WORTH ANOTHER VISIT? O YES It's a gig, it's a party, it's as  glorious as ever. Down on the floor the promenaders surge between changing stages as they rise and fall to create old Manhatt…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 04:18AM[SHARE]UPMARKET EDINBURGH ROCK, SORT OF   Sir Ian Rankin's Inspector Rebus accounts for a tenth of all crime bestsellers in the UK: the ancient mazes around Edinburgh Castle, set…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 11:46AM[SHARE]

