696 stories by "Libby Purves"
THESE BOOTS ARE MADE FOR DANCING.  IF YOU DARE. Sequins, feathers, glitter, two and a half hours of hurtling from one noisy shining set-piece to another, this is more of a gig than a …
SCIENTISTS, SEXISM, THE SCR AND THE SECRET OF LIFE Nicole Kidman, an Oscars star descending again on the West End, is the "story" here; so begin by saying that as the half-forgotten 1950's J…
GUEST CRITIC LUKE JONES (genuine 21st century school leaver..) ENJOYS THE MENTAL MUMS RATING THREE With the news we’ve been having this week, a play about educat…
Huxley and Orwell tapped into an enduring theme - the innate, unconquerable desire to be left alone
VISIONS FROM 1931 OF A TEST TUBE FUTURE… Hot on the heels of Headlong's obliquely brilliant treatment of 1984 comes a rival dystopia: Aldous Huxley wrote Brave New World in 1931, eight…
79 NOT OUT – AYCKBOURN, AT IT AGAIN Suns decline, new stars rise. This is Sir Alan Ayckbourn’s 79th play – not among his best, but when did genius ever run leve…
LOAD UP THE TWO-SEATER, JEEVES, WE’RE ON TOUR It always seems unfair when particular delights, best-comedy Olivier winners like this, are reserved for the West End, even if they …
In 1941 young Terence Rattigan was creatively blocked, gloomy after an early success then a relative failure. He joined the wartime RAF as a tail-gunner in a Wellington bomber, and in a crip…
PRIORY PEOPLE… Acting is a useful metaphor (one man in his life plays many parts, etc), and in this portrait of addiction, therapy and recovery author Duncan Macmillan squarely –…
GETTING ‘EM OFF FOR VICTORY Never in the field of TR Bath’s excellent endeavours has so much flesh been displayed with such nerve to so many. Some were, in the interval queue for…
DRAMA AS REDEMPTION From the first moments Nadia Fall’s production sets brutal, bullying humanity against a hot, strange, majestic Australian dawn. A lone aborigine watches, sile…
I'm late on the curve with this one " but it runs into September and for me, In n these WW1 anniversary years, fascinatedly collecting plays which reflect " better than any prosier or more h…
IN WHICH I AM EASILY AMUSED BY QUITE OLD JOKES. AND CLIVE MANTLE. We are all urged by manically cheerful Bajan waitresses to sing "`We're all going on a Summer Holiday" before the show. It's…
THE MAN WITH THE TANÂ When Simon Cartwright came onstage, what with the bright orange tan and smooth hair and that nervy little mannerism of smiling at the punchline, I briefly panicked. …
A VICIOUS AND GLEEFUL PLEASURE… There is a particular kind of modern feminist who fixates on the Mexican painter and free-loving socialist and her endless self-portraits: two other pla…
A TAINTED HALLELUJAH Hail a bracingly, triumphantly, intelligently unfashionable play, and Christopher Haydon of the Gate Theatre for directing and premiering it here. Lucas Hnath’…
It breaks your heart, an epic tragedy in miniature: two men, a couple of sacks and a crate, but their plight and their dreams rise before us in pathetic grandeur. Drilling into the heart of …
DARK COMEDY FROM A FRACTURED EUROPE. BUT WHERE’S THE BEAR? Only in Edinburgh's August are you likely to find an immense, patient queue snaking round the block for half an hour, unable …
GENET GENIUS? Hmmmm From time to time, the seeker for cultural enlightenment must deliberately book in to the works of some author he or she can’t see the point of. For some its B…
ENJOY BEING A GIRL? UM, NOT REALLY… Stef Smith's new play – after her acclaimed debut with ROADKILL – is  skilfully written, elegantly performed, and curiously annoyi…
THE COMPUTER COUNTESSÂ It's a topical, Tim-Hunt-tastic moment to celebrate one of the forgotten women of science, and the Edinburgh University Theatre companyhave hit on a cracking good s…
GRIEF, ILLUSION, PLAY… You can’t label this extraordinary two-hander by Tim Crouch as “experimental” theatre, even though it uses a different – wholly unprepare…
DINOSAUR-TING OUT FAMILY LIFE.. A school backpack suddenly yawns like the jaws if a Tyrannosaurus Rex, devouring an actor’s head. A toy helicopter overflies three herding brontosauri. …
THE RHINESTONE COWGIRL RIDES AGAIN I first saw this cabaret-theatre character here in 2002, drawn by curiosity because the theme was “Tina C’s Twin Towers Tribute”. Under a…
HOLMES AND HOKUM, FRIENDSHIP AND GRIEF Good to start the Fringe-blitz with a winner . (Not that it was the first one that hit me as I lurched off the Caledonian Sleeper, but more of that lat…
