696 stories by "Libby Purves"
ECHOES OF ANGLO-IRISH ANGST:  CRITIC STRUGGLES TO SYMPATHIZE Full personal disclosure: having a longstanding connection with Ireland I am not a natural empath for the Anglo-Irish Pro…
A TOE-TAPPING TOAD AND SLINKY STOATING With a caper and a thump and a hippety-hop, a flapping of laundry and a riverbank romp, the Royal Opera House has dipped a first (elegantly pointed…
AND SO IT GOES ON… "Intrigue feeds upon itself" says Thomas Cromwell, in the second part of this magnificent and terrifying chronicle. We find Anne Boleyn restless, fie…
THOMAS CROMWELL WALKS AGAIN.  A NON-READER IS ENTRANCED. "Between Christmas Day and Epiphany God permits the dead to walk". So says Henry VIII, sleepless in the dawn, summoning hi…
LOWLIFE , HIGH DRAMA AND DRINK The candles on our tables gutter in their glass shades, hands tighten round drinks, spurts of relieved laughter meet dry jokes, stillness respectsÅ
CANTERVILLE MEETS VAUDEVILLE -  on the road     Here's a bit of fun to report, the last rich dregs of Christmas before theatrecat puts on a straight face and heads t…
…theatrecat.com will be back in the New Year with Wolf Hall and wartime and the new Wanamaker, and Beckett and Cleopatra and maybe even the odd panto. Thank you all, very much, for…
This is not a theatre-news website, but it wishes to extend sympathy to the audience and cast of The Curious Affair of the Dog in the Night-Time, and to Nica Burns and her staff at Nimax The…
SLEAZE AND SCANDAL IN THE SIXTIES There is a painfully beautiful song in the second Act of Andrew Lloyd-Webber's new musical about the 1963 Profumo affair, a potential classic. "Hope…
NEVERLAND HAS ITS FEMINIST CONSCIOUSNESS RAISED You can tick off reasons why this is just what the RSC should do. A fresh commission from a rising playwright, Ella Hickson; an intellectu…
PLEBS AND POLITICS, SAVAGE AND STARK The plebs are angry, scrawling demands for grain on the bare back wall, modern in hoodies and jeans. They reckon the senators get all the…
LONELINESS, LONGING, A LINEN CUPBOARD: A HEARTSHAKING REVIVAL 1848 in rural Russia: early morning in the great house, maids opening up. High in the great linen-cupboa…
JOYFUL DISASTERS FROM COMEDY MASTERS The director is grandiose as only a student thesp can be; his assistant ("Co-director" he snaps) surly. The actors playing Pan and Wendy are an i…
TWERKING INFLATABLE ELEPHANTS! THAT’S MORE LIKE IT! For all my pleading I was unable to borrow a child for this 4+ production (school hours, bah humbug!) . But I sat next to one wh…
STABBING, SHAGGING, SNIGGERING, BUT EVER SO STYLISH What is this neon box rising from the floor, with Matt Smith inside it? Can it be the Tardis? Nope: a sunbed, and the former D…
A JEWEL FROM THE NORTH, AN ECHO FROM THE PAST Forget Acorn Antiques, fun though that was. Victoria Wood's stage musical, written a couple of years ago for the Manchester Festival, has the tr…
LIGHT AS A FEATHER, FUNNY AS A QUACK There's a lovely moment of finesse when Ben Miller, as a defecting New Lab MP in the dying days of the Brown government, is trying to impress on a To…
BRAND MEETS BEDELLA – BUT IT’S FLAWLESS THAT’S FLAWLESS! New lamps for old! It's the motto of the best pantomimes : keep the shape of the old lamp – vaude…
CLERK ON THE RUN FINDS NOTHING WORTH BUYING. NOT SURE I DO EITHER. An absconding bank-clerk in search of raw primal experience settles on the thrill of a sports stadium. "Feel the li…
DRIFTING SEETHING POETRY AND HORROR: A VAMPIRE AT THE COURT Unless you have spent recent years hiding (perhaps wisely) from teenage girls, you know that they have had their white lit…
CHILDREN STORM THE STAGE IN AN EMIL FOR EVERYONE Is there no limit to the depravity of the National Theatre? Forging 20-Reichsmark banknotes, a discredited currency, to flood an audi…
