1,401 stories from theatrecat.com
CARRY ON. OR, TO PUT IT ANOTHER WAY, KEEP MESSIN' ABOUT…   My first concern was, will they dare give us the sadness? Kenneth Williams was a comic marvel self-created, a versatile a…
GLITTER AND HARD GRAFT     A basement hung with glitter strings, a small moody band with earthy bass, a bar: few better places to revel in torch songs, deep-dug anthems an…
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.    Lyttelton, SE1 SHAKESPEARE IN THE SWING AGE    A star danced, and under it was Simon Godwin's joyful, 1930s Riviera production born. Qui…
 STARRY SISTERHOOD IN OLD VIENNA    Identical twin girls, separated at birth in their parents divorce, meet at summer camp and resolve to swop places.  Remember  "The Pa…
THE SCOTTISH PLAY ON ANCIENT TURF   "This castle hath a pleasant seat.."  Indeed it does: Red Rose Chain's traditional outdoor show now lives alongside the mysterious mounds …
101 DALMATIANS    Open Air Theatre, Regent's Park NW1 BARKING IN THE PARK    Wooof!  The OAT's new show, bounding and cavorting along under the di…
CHARLIE IS , ONCE AGAIN, OUR DANCING DARLING…     Foiled by heatwave and trains, I made it six days later to the summer's highlight, the glorious absurdity of this wicke…
   Twice lately, under tall oaks and pines on what is becoming known as Suffolk's mini-Minack, I have encountered touring opera companies doing wonderfully, relaxedly, profess…
SCRAMBLE!  CHOCKS AWAY!   Who knew that Caroline Quentin could achieve (almost) the splits, while strumming a ukulele? Or that that Richard Bean and Chris Oliver " who a de…
DECK-LICIOUS, DELOVELY, SAILING BACK IN STYLE A year on, and after a partly recast tour, SS America drops anchor back in the Barbican and in style. Actually feels even better than before…
 MOTHER RUSSIA AND ITS MEN   Here's a fresh history play: confrontational , shocking, classic in its focus on vast flawed characters and pretty close to documented " and very…
MOB JUSTICE, NO JUSTICE    There are women who, seeing a friend in an almost-good outfit, cannot help reaching out: adjusting a belt , removing an ill-judged frill, suggesting…
STEP BACK TO THE SIXTIES SIMPLICITIES…  Once again , off to this most enticing dinner-theatre embedded in a historic treasure, its big real watermill whirling away in the bar and t…
The review below is from its Chichester opening a couple of weeks back. So just a note on seeing it again: something that could well become a habit, because it really is rich snd fine. It wo…
THE BOTTLED SPIDER, HEDGEHOG, ABORTIVE ROOTING HOG, IS BACK…MAGNIFICENTLY      The winter of discontent made glorious summer is ushered in with a wild conga round the s…
ALL GREEK TO US, AND TOPICAL WITH IT Fascinating to see how, despite many light tempting fatuities and sentimentalities onscreen and onstage, and the countercurrents of self conscious experi…
IT HAS COME TO FRUITION. REJOICE!   In a spirit of joyful pastiche, it's a Sweeney-Todd sound that opens the show: "`Prepare! To be made Aware! Of the most successful Labour Premi…
OF MAN'S FIRST DISOBEDIENCE….  Thorington is a new outdoor theatre, a beautiful bomb-crater amid tall sighing pine trees and beneath a great oak in Suffolk. It runs only one-night,Å
VIA MEDIA ANGLICANA IN A NEW JERUSALEM    We're in a vicarage kitchen in a small West Country town, its incumbent dealing with parishioners, a resentful, weary wife and t…
WOOLFING ROUND THE GENDER BEND A bit of a conversion experience for me, this. Disliked Woolf for years, Lighthouse and Waves and all, and therefore never read Orlando. Thought of it as a bit…
A DARKER HAZE ON AMERICA'S MEADOW Traditionally, audiences don't go to Oklahoma to be unsettled . On the other hand you don't go to the Young Vic to have your expectations cosily met by …
TEENS FALLING, UNPROTECTED   An empty basement in a working class Kentucky neighbourhood in the mid 70s. An offstage adult world is preoccupied with unemployment, the main…
A SCRUTABLE TAKE ON CHINA   This is a beguiling 70-minute solo show from the actor, writer, wandering maverick entrepreneur and China pundit Mark Kitto. He plays three pa…
VOICES FROM THE VALLEYS     It is a curious feeling to be half charmed and half irritated by a production: one moment absorbed in a confrontation and engaged with a character, …
NURSING ACROSS CONTINENTS    Kayla Meikle, stalwart in Victorian dignity and Caribbean matriarchy, addresses us firmly at the start of Jackie Sibblies Drury's manic, sometimesÅ
