All stories by Libby Purves on BroadwayStars

Thursday, July 2, 2015

WONDER.LAND Palace, Manchester by Libby Purves

DOWN THE RABBIT HOLE  Fifty minutes in, we got a 30ft yodelling falsetto caterpillar with flashing saucer eyes, and I cheered up. It also, as it happens, sang the central message of…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 06:14PM[SHARE]
Wednesday, July 1, 2015

THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST Vaudeville, WC2 by Libby Purves

A HANDBAG?  A WHOLE TRUNKFUL OF TREATS The heart sinks beforehand: Oscar Wilde's sunny comedy melodrama is too familiar: skipping from one well-worn epigram to the next, from handbag to m…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 06:14PM[SHARE]
Saturday, June 27, 2015

ALL THE ANGELS Wanamaker Playhouse at Shakespeare's Globe, SE1 by Libby Purves

COMFORT YE! HANDEL AND THE FIRST MESSIAH Handel's Messiah is a phenomenon: written in three weeks in the composer's most disappointed phase, to this day it plays as sublimely as a chamber pi…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 03:11AM[SHARE]
Friday, June 26, 2015

THE TRIAL Young Vic SE1 by Libby Purves

GUEST REVIEWER LUKE JONES IS CONVEYED BY A DYSTOPIAN INJUSTICE The auditorium is a coliseum, with a tremendous conveyor belt slicing it in half, flappy black curtains at either end. K w…

SOURCE: mytheatremates.com at 07:09PM[SHARE]

THE SEAGULL OPEN AIR THEATRE Regent's Park W1 by Libby Purves

CHEKHOV UNDER THE TREES Fortune favours the brave, and the meteorological riskiness of outdoor theatre sometimes pays handsomely. A great heron flew over, squawking doom, just as Irina screa…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 06:59AM[SHARE]
Wednesday, June 24, 2015

BEND IT LIKE BECKHAM Phoenix, WC2 by Libby Purves

BACK OF THE NET!   Rejoice! In the midst of Fifa’s dismal doings musical theatre makes football beautiful again. Gurinder Chadha’s and Paul Mayeda Berges’ fable, of a …

SOURCE: mytheatremates.com at 05:59PM[SHARE]
Sunday, June 21, 2015

The thrill of theatre at its most elemental by Libby Purves

Libby Purves: Open air theatre works brilliantly. In fact, it offers some of the most enjoyable drama of the summer

SOURCE: The Telegraph at 06:00AM[SHARE]
Wednesday, June 17, 2015

THE MOTHER F**KER WITH THE HAT Lyttelton, SE1 by Libby Purves

NOW HERE’S THE ONE TO SEE.  DON’T MIND THE LANGUAGE… If you worry about language, the clue's in the title. More f's and assholes than you can shake a reproving finger at…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 06:01PM[SHARE]
Tuesday, June 16, 2015
Monday, June 15, 2015

WE WANT YOU TO WATCH NT Temporary Theatre, SE1 by Libby Purves

PORN AND PHYSICALITY We’re all on the same page here, right? Online pornography is increasingly violent, graphically displaying real, abusive sexual acts devoid of tenderness. Rapist s…

SOURCE: mytheatremates.com at 06:54PM[SHARE]

THE HOOK Royal, Northampton by Libby Purves

UNDER THE BRIDGE, MEN UNDER PRESSURE “You gonna have a revolution”: the last words of Arthur Miller’s angry “play for the screen”, echo here with an interrogati…

SOURCE: mytheatremates.com at 02:36AM[SHARE]
Friday, June 12, 2015

OTHELLO Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford Upon Avon by Libby Purves

SPECIAL GUEST REVIEWER DARREN RAYMOND OF INTERMISSION THEATRE COMPANY TAKES ON RSC OTHELLO, SKYPE, RAP, BOXBEAT AND ALL….. The RSC made a bold statement by casting their first ever bla…

SOURCE: mytheatremates.com at 02:39PM[SHARE]

AN AUDIENCE WITH JIMMY SAVILE Park Theatre, N4 by Libby Purves

SHOCKING, SHAMING, MAYBE SALUTARY It is a cliché to say that over decades of TV fame, showy fundraising and hidden sexual crime Savile 'groomed the nation". There were indeed encomia –…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 02:51AM[SHARE]
Thursday, June 11, 2015

A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS Chichester Festival Theatre by Libby Purves

SUNNY SUMMER KICKS AND SOARING SONGS Here's a joyful thing: a confection of butterscotch and sunshine, a tale of turrets and twosomes and tap-breaks, friendship and chivalry and secret passa…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 04:42AM[SHARE]

THE RED LION NT Dorfman, SE1 by Libby Purves

GUEST REVIEWER LUKE JONES SAYS “BACK OF THE NET, MARBER!” "This isn’t a church, it’s a 'business!" What a sentiment for a theatre crowd to hear – or indeed anyo…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 04:18AM[SHARE]
Tuesday, June 9, 2015

THE EIGHTH WONDER OF THE WORLD Brunel Tunnel Shaft, SE16 by Libby Purves

FROCK-COATS AND FLOODS, TUNNELS AND THE THAMES  In the week that Crossrail tunnellers broke through beneath London, a city and river now criss-crossed with subterranean thoroughfares, h…

SOURCE: mytheatremates.com at 06:03PM[SHARE]

BETA TESTING Udderbelly at the South BAnk SE1 by Libby Purves

THROW IT UP, KEEP IT MOVING,  THAT’S LIFE… With August looming over the horizon, there comes a time when the critic needs to harden up, sit on some prickly astroturf leaning…

SOURCE: mytheatremates.com at 03:56AM[SHARE]
Saturday, June 6, 2015

ORESTEIA Almeida N1 by Libby Purves

GUEST REVIEWER LUKE JONES TACKLES THE ROUGHAGE The Oresteia is probably one of those stories you don’t know. Until you start watching it again. Only then, piecing together fragments, d…

SOURCE: mytheatremates.com at 03:52AM[SHARE]
Wednesday, June 3, 2015

STOP! The Play Trafalgar 2, SW1 by Libby Purves

BANKSY,  SEX,  AND STAGE DIRECTIONS  In a tatty rehearsal-room, the title reflects the director’s frequent cry, stopping for new stage directions or rewrites from the un…

SOURCE: mytheatremates.com at 07:24PM[SHARE]
Monday, June 1, 2015

THE ELEPHANT MAN Theatre Royal, Haymarket SW1 by Libby Purves

BROADWAY VICTORIANA DOESN’T QUITE GET THERE It was David Lynch's 1980 film – monochrome, moody, with an unforgettable performance by John Hurt – which brought to modern awa…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 06:07PM[SHARE]
Friday, May 29, 2015

PETER PAN Open Air Theatre, Regent's Park W1 by Libby Purves

AN AWFULLY BIG ADVENTURE We're in a World War I field hospital with iron beds and the corrugated-iron, battered detritus of trench warfare below. But young men will always leap and lark like…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 09:38AM[SHARE]
Wednesday, May 27, 2015

TEMPLE Donmar, WC1 by Libby Purves

ALL FIVE MICE REJOICE (CHURCH MICE, CLEARLY)  FOR A MODERN HISTORY-PLAY Above the table cluttered with  last-night’s paper cups, high windows show St Paul’s dome; …

SOURCE: mytheatremates.com at 05:58PM[SHARE]
Tuesday, May 26, 2015

THE BEAUX' STRATAGEM Olivier, SE1 by Libby Purves

SONGS, SCUFFLES, VILLAINS AND VIRTUE IN 1707 Towering staircases and sliding panels transform the big stage from tavern to genteel house, with a pleasingly inexplicable intermittent folk-ban…

SOURCE: mytheatremates.com at 06:42PM[SHARE]
Monday, May 25, 2015

THE MERCHANT OF VENICE Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford upon Avon by Libby Purves

DARK, STARK AND DANGEROUS:  A MERCHANT FOR TODAY What an odd, stark, angry, intelligent Merchant this is! Wholly unlike the last RSC production, Rupert Goold's spectacular Merchant-of-Veg…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 07:19PM[SHARE]
Friday, May 22, 2015

THE ONE DAY OF THE YEAR " Finborough Theatre by Libby Purves

GUEST REVIEWER LUKE JONES IS STIRRED BY  REMEMBRANCE In quiet England we stand in silence. In Australia, at least in this play, they shout it from the rooftops and down it from the…

SOURCE: mytheatremates.com at 04:11AM[SHARE]
Thursday, May 21, 2015

McQUEEN St James' Theatre, SW1 by Libby Purves

A DESIGNER, A DREAM, A DANCE, A DREAD  "What is it about men with watching eyes…?" asks the ghost of Isabella Blow, she of the troubled soul and hilariously witty hats. One such man was…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 06:43PM[SHARE]
Tuesday, May 19, 2015

FANNY AND STELLA Above the Stag, Vauxhall SW8 by Libby Purves

BOYS IN BUSTLES:   SWAGS AND SWAGGER IN VICTORIAN LONDON "The Unnatural History and Petticoat Mystery of Boulton and Park" cries the Victorian poster. "Men in Women's Clothes – with…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 06:20PM[SHARE]

McQUEEN St James' Theatre, SW1 by Libby Purves

A DESIGNER, A DREAM, A DANCE “What is it about men with watching eyes…?” asks the ghost of Isabella Blow, she of the troubled soul and hilariously witty hats. One such man …

SOURCE: mytheatremates.com at 05:49PM[SHARE]
Friday, May 15, 2015

THE ANGRY BRIGADE Bush Theatre W12 by Libby Purves

AN OLD ANGER, SPEAKING TO TODAY We are short of good political playwrights: they tend to hail from the left and be either depressingly prosey or brainlessly 'bouffon' (ISLANDS at this very t…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 03:04PM[SHARE]
Thursday, May 14, 2015

HIGH SOCIETY " Old Vic Theatre by Libby Purves

A SWELL PARTY… Joe Stilgoe the piano man holds the stage as we settle, receiving a fusillade of unhelpful audience requests (“Bolero! Summertime! Pink Panther! Prokoffiev’s…

SOURCE: mytheatremates.com at 06:48PM[SHARE]
Wednesday, May 13, 2015

COMMUNICATING DOORS Menier, SE1 by Libby Purves

IN WHICH THE OLD LION OF SCARBOROUGH TACKLES A TIMELESS PHILOSOPHICAL CONUNDRUM… …Which is to say, the question of whether time-travel would enable you to change the past, hence …

SOURCE: mytheatremates.com at 07:03PM[SHARE]

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