
A DOSE HARD TO SWALLOW David Hare has chronicled Labour politics – and the state of the nation -for nearly half a century,  brilliantly catching truths and tensions. …
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 08:01PM[SHARE]THE EXTINCTION OF ENGLAND'S EASTERNMOST VILLAGE         There is no Grit fishing-village now on the Lowestoft shore, but in 1900 there were homes, shops,…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 10:01AM[SHARE]DIVORCED BEHEADED DIED – REVIVED! Took me a shameful while to catch up on this clever little riot of a feminist musical, down from an Edinburgh triumph and packing the Ar…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 05:54PM[SHARE]TALES OF A CITY    "I see a beautiful city" says a spotlit actor, and the rest take it up in styles from Radio 4 to rap, then group and regroup, changing with the shrug o…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 04:48AM[SHARE]WARM HEARTS,  COLD WAR After the Salisbury-Novichok affair there is a sour laugh when Stewart, the MI5 official, reassures the nervous Jackson family that the coming arres…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 06:22AM[SHARE]GUEST CRITIC BEN BLACKMORE MUSES ON CHEESE-KNIVES AND TELETUBBY HOUSES PINTER 2 announces itself in bold, Sex And The City-type projections, in the Sex And The City font as though it …
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 12:58PM[SHARE]STEEL CELLS AND SADISM Â Â Â Settling in, you'd think you were at the Cenotaph or the Tattoo. Â A military soundtrack booms out Imperial Echoes and Jupiter (I Vow To Thee M…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 03:56AM[SHARE]A GLORIOUS SERPENT OF OLD NILE    This can be a beast of a play: epic, three and a half hours, scenes spread across the Mediterranean from Rome to Cairo by land and sea.…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 07:12PM[SHARE]MOLIERE IN THE MODERN MIDLANDS     It says something good about our arts establishment that this sharp caper comes from the Royal Shakespeare Company, not some …
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 12:00PM[SHARE]PARENTHOOD, PRAYER , PROSECCO The renamed Tricycle (no, I am not taking sides) Â Is open:Â its leader Indhu Rubasingham launches her sprauncy new theatre with Alexis Zegerman's …
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 04:29AM[SHARE]DOING JUSTICE TO AGATHA Â (She'd have loved it!) Â Â Â Â Â Â The courtroom is the marbled council chamber of the old County Hall:the story by Agatha Christie even hoarier…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 03:55AM[SHARE]LOOKING OUT TO SEA, AT PAST AND FUTURE    With the feral teenage violence of HEATHERS (scroll to it below) all snarling and murdering in the West End, and the manic cheer…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 04:45PM[SHARE]OUT OF AUSTERITY, A DREAM OF BEAUTY       A gulf yawns between this musical's two halves: a gulf of wealth, sophistication, hope and colour.  Ida Harr…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 02:23PM[SHARE]DARK LARKS AND HIGH SCHOOL HOMICIDE You thought there were enough school-themed musicals? What with Bring it On, School of Rock and our own dear cross-dressing Jamie…?Â…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 08:56PM[SHARE]A RARE OLD TIME IN DUBLIN , IN IPSWICH The miniature of Libby Watson's gorgeous Dublin pub set in the foyer raises your spirits straight away. Sometimes only an Irish pub w…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 03:52AM[SHARE]HUMANITY RISING FROM HORROR Â Â Â It is one of the oldest notions in the world: the unquiet grave. Â From Sophocles to modern campaigns we are haunted by the idea that the …
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 03:35AM[SHARE]Â GUEST CRITIC MICHAEL ADAIR IS TRANSPORTED TO NEW YORK, AND FAMILY TRUTH The joy of a play like The Humans is that it can take a subject that feels as if it might have been …
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 12:05PM[SHARE]ONE OF BENNETT'S FINEST , ON THE ROAD AGAIN     Onstage is a shabby rehearsal room, an Oxford study scruffily indicated with doorframes and signs; at the side a litter of c…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 06:21AM[SHARE]GRAND PLIE, FIRST POSITION, TURN…TWERK…    My friend and comrade-in-the stalls Mr Letts of the Mail has suggested ( by means of Twitter ,review on Friday, alway…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 05:23PM[SHARE]RAN IN MAIL (STAND-IN TEMPORARY CRITIC COULDN’T RESIST THIS.. SO HERE FOR THEATRECATTERS WHO MIGHT MISS IT.. THE LEAGUE OF GENTLEMEN LIVE Â Â Â Â Â Â SEC Glasg…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 12:08PM[SHARE]WAS STANDING IN AS DAILY MAIL CRITIC FOR A WEEK, SO DID NOT DO THESE ON THEATRECAT. HERE THEY ARE FOR T/CAT FOLLOWERS Â THOUGH, SLIGHTLY EXPANDED. COPENHAGENÂ Â Â Minerva, Chiches…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 06:05AM[SHARE]DARK LADY DEMANDING LIMELIGHT    The Globe has had some tremendous new-writing about history, for which it is nicely suited. Remember Howard Brenton's Anne Boleyn and…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 08:47AM[SHARE]WHAT LARKS… There is a swimming-pool ladder, a rubber-ring shaped like a swan, a robotic golf cart, some decorative flamingos (one used as a weapon) , and a statue of Queen E…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 07:16PM[SHARE]GUEST REVIEWER CHARLOTTE VALORI MARVELS AT GREEK PERFECTION AT GRIMEBORN Like the roar of an older, bolder London, Mark-Anthony Turnage's GREEK bounces snarling onto the Grimeborn stage, cel…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 08:42PM[SHARE]LA PETITE PIAF, REVENANTE..   I grew up with Piaf, a temporary French schoolchild in 1960, skated around the patinoire with my friends snarling along with the endless plays of "J…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 09:42AM[SHARE]GUEST REVIEWER CHARLOTTE VALORI FINDS THE BOYS GET ALL THE DRAMA AT GRIMEBORN Lucia di Lammermoor is an opera of shocking brutality, with savage emotional aggression rivalling physical viole…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 06:21AM[SHARE]DREAMS AND LEGENDS OF DECAY Brian Friel's gift is humane ambiguity, refusing to allow tidy judgements on his characters . Or even – though his theme is Ireland's history…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 04:03AM[SHARE]HIP HOP HURRAH ON THE WRONG SIDE OF THE TRACKS Here's a hot one, in every sense. Clapped till my hands stuck together at this youthful, truthful, touching and funny tale of acroba…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 04:31AM[SHARE]GUEST REVIEWER CHARLOTTE VALORI FINDS REVOLUTION NOT GOING FAR IN A WORLD PREMIERE AT GRIMEBORN Prometheus stole fire from the gods in order to ensure human progress, and met with a grisly e…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 07:34PM[SHARE]A HANDBAG?  You're not often given a surprise by Lane the butler in in his short appearance,  as he delivers those immortally celebrated cucumber sandwiches to the piano-st…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 04:19AM[SHARE]DANCE AND DEFIANCE BELOW THE WAVES    Metta theatre's hit JUNGLE BOOK was fashionably hip-hop before Hamilton hit (and was certainly the only time I ever heard gri…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 05:15PM[SHARE]

