All stories by Libby Purves on BroadwayStars

Friday, April 19, 2024

LOVE'S LABOURS LOST Royal Shakespeare Theatre. Stratford u-Avon by Libby Purves and Friends

MEN BEHAVING RIDICULOUSLY The lord of Navarre and three nobles have resolved to retreat and study for three years, eschewing  female company: so even the princess  suing for land has t…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 02:47AM[SHARE]
Thursday, April 18, 2024

LONDON TIDE Lyttelton, SE1 by Libby Purves and Friends

MUD, MARSH, MONEY      Now here's a bracing new way to do Dickens:  avoid sets full of Victoriana by keeping the stage pretty much empty beneath a set of uneasily moving lighting…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 05:20AM[SHARE]
Tuesday, April 16, 2024

PLAYER KINGS Noel Coward Theatre & Touring by Libby Purves and Friends

REFLECTIONS ON A FAT KNIGHT Due to train disruption " speak not of overhead wires and wind " I had to bail out at the interval,  from  Robert Icke's epic three and a half hour modern-d…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 06:47AM[SHARE]
Monday, April 15, 2024

REFLECTIONS ON INK 2024 by Libby Purves and Friends

WHY HALESWORTH MATTERS TO THE NATIONAL DRAMATIC ECOSYSTEM    The other day I did an overview-preview from some dress rehearsals at the INK short play festival in Suffolk (scroll below)…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 07:51AM[SHARE]
Sunday, April 14, 2024

RICHARD, MY RICHARD Theatre Royal, Bury St Edmunds by Libby Purves and Friends

      CROOKBACK DICK REIMAGINED          Saving Richard III from Shakespeare's calumny seems to have a particular appeal to women: probably because around his accessi…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 08:41AM[SHARE]
Saturday, April 13, 2024

INK FESTIVAL Halesworth, Suffolk by Libby Purves and Friends

DIVING ABOUT IN A UNIQUE SHORT-PLAY FESTIVAL          Join me on a parked Hoppa minibus where Henry VIII is chatting up a new Jane.  She is not impressed by the Tudor-Tinde…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 05:27AM[SHARE]
Friday, April 12, 2024

MOBY DICK Royal & Derngate, and TOURING by Libby Purves and Friends

HOLINESS IN THE WHALE         It pretty much had me harpooned at the words  "Call me Ishmael".   As Mark Arends' earnestly naive schoolteacher speaks the opening lines and …

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 05:26AM[SHARE]
Thursday, April 4, 2024

UNDERDOG: THE OTHER OTHER BRONTE Dorfman, SE1 by Libby Purves and Friends

WUTHERING SIBLINGS      Grace Smart the designer sets the scene as we settle in with a sweet miniature moor, all harebells and heather and cloddy bits of earth.  But it rises in …

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 06:55PM[SHARE]

SHERLOCK HOLMES: THE VALLEY OF FEAR Southwark Playhouse SE1 by Libby Purves and Friends

THE GAME'S AFOOT. EVENTUALLY. Nick Lane's adaptation of Conan Doyle's late, broodingly complicated novel has met many huzzahs from Sherlock Holmes fans, previously here, on tour and  stre…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 05:56AM[SHARE]
Wednesday, April 3, 2024

THE DREAM OF A RIDICULOUS MAN         Marylebone Theatre. NW1 by Libby Purves and Friends

DOSTOYEVSKY IN DALTON       "These days" says the man on the empty stage,  "people are precious to me, even when they insult me.  I have woken up".  His stark features d…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 02:17PM[SHARE]
Saturday, March 30, 2024

POWER OF SAIL Menier, SE1 by Libby Purves and Friends

CAMPUS RITES AND WRONGS Sometimes, I do like a stage set you could cosily move right into.  Paul Farnsworth's is a nice  evocation of a Harvard professor's study: shelves and panelling…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 02:22PM[SHARE]
Friday, March 29, 2024

THE DIVINE MRS S Hampstead Theatre, N1 by Libby Purves and Friends

HOMAGE TO THE FIRST CELEBRITY DIVA        Last time theatre's pre-Victorian glory days  " silk breeches, rowdy audiences and Garrickian hamming  " were celebrated on this s…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 07:35AM[SHARE]
Wednesday, March 27, 2024

OPENING NIGHT Gielgud, WC2 by Libby Purves and Friends

HOW TO WASTE A STELLAR CAST       Sheridan Smith is not only a box-office draw  but a rare and genuine talent:  two decades a star  on screen and stage, musicals and drama:…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 04:27AM[SHARE]
Sunday, March 24, 2024

MIND MANGLER Apollo, WC2 by Libby Purves and Friends

MAGIC . ALWAYS BETTER WHEN DISASTROUS.          God bless Mischief Theatre.  Eleven years ago this coming May I saw THE PLAY THAT GOES WRONG in the tiny downstairs space at…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 04:01PM[SHARE]
Friday, March 22, 2024

RED PITCH Sohoplace W1 by Libby Purves and Friends

KIDS WITH A KICK IN THEM        There's been an interlockof themes in theatre lately: DEAR ENGLAND at the NT displaying Gareth Southgate's work in fostering the openness and emot…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 07:31AM[SHARE]
Thursday, March 21, 2024

FAITH HEALER Lyric, Hammersmith by Libby Purves and Friends

HOPE, HEART, HARDSHIP    Brian Friel's 1979 remarkable play stands on its own, offering a kind of depressive beauty: beneath the story of one ramshackle troubled couple it is a meditat…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 06:44AM[SHARE]

THE BARBER OF SEVILLE Wiltons, E1 by Libby Purves and Friends

RO$$INI BONANZA!  Guest reviewer Dean Thompson finds much in a small space… Opera lovers or new to opera will love this!  So, get on your horse and gallop over to see Charles Court O…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 06:23AM[SHARE]
Monday, March 18, 2024

STONES IN HIS POCKETS      Eastern Angles touring by Libby Purves and Friends

A CELLULOID INVASION   This  was at first a startling choice:  Eastern Angles' tradition is generally, as it heroically tours night-by-night across the eastern counties,   to pro…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 01:52PM[SHARE]
Wednesday, March 13, 2024

LONDON ZOO Southwark Playhouse SE1 by Libby Purves and Friends

BOARDROOM BEASTS     This may break all records for the smartest costumes ever at the Southwark's smallest space: six irreproachable business suits, including two sets of tweed-chic fe…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 06:26AM[SHARE]
Tuesday, March 12, 2024

GUYS AND DOLLS …reprise & birthday! by Libby Purves and Friends

A FRESH CAST, ONE YEAR ON  Can it really be a whole year since, with theatre still gallantly recovering from Covid, Nicholas Hytner rolled the dice and opted to offer us some razzle dazzl…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 08:40AM[SHARE]
Friday, March 8, 2024

LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS New Wolsey, Ipswich & touring by Libby Purves and Friends

PLANT FOOD PEOPLE FROM THE PAST        I missed this first time round, due to the babysitting years, so it was grand to catch up. It's a 1980's  revival,  a spoof on  19…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 06:15AM[SHARE]
Thursday, March 7, 2024

NYE Olivier, SE1 by Libby Purves and Friends

A MAVERICK MINISTER         There's another play to be written about Aneurin Bevan,  stubborn founder of the National Health Service: perhaps a more contentious one, or a fant…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 06:44AM[SHARE]
Wednesday, March 6, 2024

TURNING THE SCREW Kings Head, Islington by Libby Purves and Friends

ONCE BRITTEN TWICE SHY?    The late David Hemmings, one of Britten's mentored, worshipped boy sopranos, was unforgettable aged 12  as the original MIles in the composer's  terrif…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 05:45PM[SHARE]

THE LONELY LONDONERS.  Jermyn St Theatre by Libby Purves and Friends

THE WINDRUSH WARRIORS       Moses'  crowded bedsit  is where the new ones turn up off the boat train, wanting to know how to do London;  he can tell them names like Clapham…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 11:49AM[SHARE]
Monday, March 4, 2024

The Magic Flute Coliseum, WC2 by Libby Purves and Friends

GUEST REVIEWER AND OPERABUFF DEAN THOMPSON LOVES ENO'S LATEST Ingenious " Dazzling " Hilarious! If you haven't seen The Magic Flute before, then this is the one to see; if you have see…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 02:46AM[SHARE]
Friday, March 1, 2024

BEN AND IMO Swan, Stratford upon Avon by Libby Purves and Friends

CORONATION, COMMISSION, COLLABORATION            You need not be a selfish pig to be an artist of genius,  but there's no question that it often helps.  Occurs, anywa…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 04:10AM[SHARE]
Thursday, February 29, 2024

NACHTLAND. Young Vic SE1 by Libby Purves and Friends

AN ATTIC WARNING      Fasten your seat belts for a bracingly odd German play by Marius von Mayenburg; hold on tight as it veers  in a switchback weirdness, which  I for one en…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 04:47PM[SHARE]
Wednesday, February 28, 2024

CABLE STREET Southwark Playhouse SE1 by Libby Purves and Friends

THEY SHALL NOT PASS    Given the current swell of antisemitism there was a heartstopping moment from Jez Unwin as Yitzhak Scheinberg,  patriarch of a hardworking East End Jewish fam…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 03:26PM[SHARE]

THE HUMAN BODY Donmar, WC2 by Libby Purves and Friends

1948 AND ALL THAT    Right now, the birth of the NHS in 1948 is more than appropriate to write about (there's another play about Nye Bevan next week).  For as the most jaded doctor …

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 04:16AM[SHARE]
Tuesday, February 20, 2024

DOUBLE FEATURE.     Hampstead Theatre  by Libby Purves and Friends

WANNA BE IN MOVIES? REALLY? BRRRR! We open in a chilly Suffolk cottage in the rain (I  am tonight probably the only person here to have come direct from a chilly Suffolk cottage, in rain.…

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 05:31AM[SHARE]
Friday, February 16, 2024

DEAR OCTOPUS.      Lyttelton, SE1  by Libby Purves and Friends

TENTACLES  STRETCHING INTO PAST AND FUTURE     Electricity is coming to the village but the elderly Randolphs wont bother, preferring the paraffin lamplight of their forebears.  …

SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 02:46PM[SHARE]

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