
BRACING, BELTING, BENIGN    At the end of the evening the great diva, director and muse informs us that we too must sing. In a packed house, on the far side of a pandemic whi…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 11:41AM[SHARE] LEARNING TO LIVE     Sometimes judging others harshly is a relishable guilty pleasure. In Ruby Thomas' wonderful 80-minute sequence of snapshots of family therapy,…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 08:17PM[SHARE]NOT A FINE ROMANCE Â Â Mamet plays are Marmite plays. You can applaud Speed the Plow, adore Wag the Dog on screen, and have a pleasurable argument with the opposite sex after a particu…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 11:49AM[SHARE]LOVE AS AN UNCOURTLY CONTESTÂ Â Â In 2009 " and again in Chichester 2018 " I missed Mike Bartlett's mischievous, half-earnest play about a gay man wrestling with his identity (and h…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 07:59PM[SHARE]A VIGOROUS, HEARTSHAKING BRUSH OF OPPOSITES    Two artists in a studio:  the older one pale and floppily blond, languidly self-protective, drawling, preaching a cool…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 05:30AM[SHARE]AN ORDINARY TRIANGLE TWISTS INTO NIGHTMARE Â Â Â Â The French novelist-turned-playwright Florian Zeller hit the British theatre scene a few years ago with two comedies: The LieÂ…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 10:58AM[SHARE]HOMAGE TO A HEALING CHAOS    If " like Prince Charles " you grew up with the Goons in the background ("Ying Tong! Bluebottle! He's fallen in da water!" etc) this will ring be…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 12:31PM[SHARE]MIDDLECLASS MOUNTAIN MISERIES Â Â Â Inspired programming here. Â You'd find a decent overlap in any January Venn diagram of regular Donmar audiences and people who wish they were…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 10:29AM[SHARE]Puppets move the heart…    It was a third attempt ( like so many, it has had cancellations and suspensions), and I missed it in Sheffield 2019 through illness. So I bought …
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 09:14AM[SHARE]By Libby Purves Our resident theatreCat Libby Purves returned to Hampstead Theatre to review Neil Leyshon's play Folk now playing in the Downstairs Theatre. This post REVIEW: Folk, Hampstead…
SOURCE: britishtheatre.com at 12:55PM[SHARE]SONGS FROM THE LAND    There's a lovely serendipity here. The main theatre is running PEGGY FOR YOU (till 29th) while the little downstairs space has Neil Leyshon's r…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 07:18AM[SHARE]PLAGUE YEAR Part 2 "  2021  Below, if you care to scroll , I chronicled the shows that met my return from chemo-then-lockdown in 2020.  An enfeebled theatrical year.  …
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 01:55PM[SHARE]PART 1: THE ONSET   I set out, in this eerie Twixtmas gap, to chronicle and celebrate the return of live theatre since May 2021. And this will follow. But when I tott…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 11:49AM[SHARE]By Libby Purves Our very own theatreCat Libby Purves paid a visit to Peggy For You at Hampstead Theatre. Until 29 January 2022. This post REVIEW: Peggy For You, Hampstead Theatre âœâœ…
SOURCE: britishtheatre.com at 06:57AM[SHARE]A SHARP , SERPENTINE, SUPERB PERFORMANCE Â Â Â Â Â Lounging in the small hours on her office couch, under a wall of posters for her many clients' shows " both famous and forgo…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 05:57AM[SHARE]A PRIMA DONNY JOINS THE FEARLESS FOUR   Last year as a family we came to see the doughty quartet doing this variety show, an adult-joking non-panto to fill the fearful gap. I…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 11:31AM[SHARE]1968 AND ALL THATÂ James Graham's mission might seem unfashionable: trawling 20c history and public culture, looking not for villains and heroes but for the nuances of human behaviour,Â…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 06:35PM[SHARE]By Libby Purves Our theatreCat Libby Purves reviews The Book of Dust now playing at The Bridge Theatre where they are pulling out the stops for Pullman. This post REVIEW: The Book of Dust, B…
SOURCE: britishtheatre.com at 04:10AM[SHARE]PULLING OUT THE STOPS FOR PULLMAN Â Â First things first: this is the most wonderfully evocative, romantic and dramatic bit of set-projection you will see all year. Bob Crowley, video …
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 07:07PM[SHARE]A REVIVING REVIVAL    Do you need to be of a generation to remember Morecambe and Wise, to which this play is a loving tribute-cum-amiable-ripoff? Probably not. They are stamp…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 07:36PM[SHARE]ISLAND OF WONDER AND UNEASE Â Â Â Â One of the interesting, rewarding quirks in Tom Littler's small-but-perfectly-formed Tempest is that Tam Williams doubles as Ferdinand, the ul…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 09:31AM[SHARE]GLIMPSES OF ETERNITY (Review first published on D.Mail, in shorter form)     This is wonderful. Sometimes a simple short performance can shake, rouse, even change you.…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 06:19AM[SHARE]worth going again I say.. Just thought I should mention to theatrecat readers how wonderful this show it. Saw it twice before the pandemic, nipped back to a matinee a week or so back…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 11:34AM[SHARE]2021 BRITAIN IN A STATELY STORMY NUTSHELL   Just what we needed, I thought! A good old state-of-the-nation black comedy with a semi-derelict Manor in a howling storm, the sea …
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 04:16AM[SHARE]By Libby Purves Our very own theatreCAT Libby Purves reviews Zadie Smith's play The Wife of Willesden at the Kiln Theatre. This post REVIEW: The Wife Of Willesden, Kiln Theatre âœâœ…
SOURCE: britishtheatre.com at 07:23AM[SHARE]By Libby Purves Our very own theatreCat Libby Purves reviews Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike by Christopher Durang now playing at the Charing Cross Theatre. This post REVIEW: Vanya and S…
SOURCE: britishtheatre.com at 06:40PM[SHARE]SIX CENTURIES ON, IT'S GEOFFREY CHAUCER'S ROUND     Zadie Smith humbly refers to her first play as more like "homework" than the novelist's usual dread of a blank page. Ch…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 10:19AM[SHARE]A CHEKHQUERED RESPONSEÂ Â Â Â Â Vanya and Sonia are siblings " though she is adopted " and have led dull dutiful lives in a remote country house surrounded by cherry trees and…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 04:23AM[SHARE]Â Â Â Â Â Â ROLL UP! IT'S BACK! Ah, Christmastime! Â Â There's nothing like a buff chap in spike-heeled patent thigh-boots somersaulting in the air to make you feel festive.…
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 05:56PM[SHARE]A HUMAN ZOO OF ALPHA MEN There are good plays to be written about white male privilege, and about modern capitalism and its relentless expectation of self-promotion and constant advancement …
SOURCE: theatrecat.com at 05:37AM[SHARE]By Libby Purves Our very own theatreCat Libby Purves reviews Nigel Havers and Patricia Hodge in Noel Coward's Private Lives which is now touring. This post REVIEW: Private Lives, Nigel Haver…
SOURCE: britishtheatre.com at 05:44PM[SHARE]

