1,401 stories from theatrecat.com
DOING JUSTICE TO AGATHA Â (She'd have loved it!) Â Â Â Â Â Â The courtroom is the marbled council chamber of the old County Hall:the story by Agatha Christie even hoarier…
LOOKING OUT TO SEA, AT PAST AND FUTURE    With the feral teenage violence of HEATHERS (scroll to it below) all snarling and murdering in the West End, and the manic cheer…
OUT OF AUSTERITY, A DREAM OF BEAUTY       A gulf yawns between this musical's two halves: a gulf of wealth, sophistication, hope and colour.  Ida Harr…
DARK LARKS AND HIGH SCHOOL HOMICIDE You thought there were enough school-themed musicals? What with Bring it On, School of Rock and our own dear cross-dressing Jamie…?Â…
A RARE OLD TIME IN DUBLIN , IN IPSWICH The miniature of Libby Watson's gorgeous Dublin pub set in the foyer raises your spirits straight away. Sometimes only an Irish pub w…
HUMANITY RISING FROM HORROR Â Â Â It is one of the oldest notions in the world: the unquiet grave. Â From Sophocles to modern campaigns we are haunted by the idea that the …
 GUEST CRITIC MICHAEL ADAIR IS TRANSPORTED TO NEW YORK, AND FAMILY TRUTH The joy of a play like The Humans is that it can take a subject that feels as if it might have been …
ONE OF BENNETT'S FINEST , ON THE ROAD AGAIN     Onstage is a shabby rehearsal room, an Oxford study scruffily indicated with doorframes and signs; at the side a litter of c…
GRAND PLIE, FIRST POSITION, TURN…TWERK…    My friend and comrade-in-the stalls Mr Letts of the Mail has suggested ( by means of Twitter ,review on Friday, alway…
RAN IN MAIL (STAND-IN TEMPORARY CRITIC COULDN’T RESIST THIS.. SO HERE FOR THEATRECATTERS WHO MIGHT MISS IT.. THE LEAGUE OF GENTLEMEN LIVE Â Â Â Â Â Â SEC Glasg…
WAS STANDING IN AS DAILY MAIL CRITIC FOR A WEEK, SO DID NOT DO THESE ON THEATRECAT. HERE THEY ARE FOR T/CAT FOLLOWERS Â THOUGH, SLIGHTLY EXPANDED. COPENHAGENÂ Â Â Minerva, Chiches…
DARK LADY DEMANDING LIMELIGHT    The Globe has had some tremendous new-writing about history, for which it is nicely suited. Remember Howard Brenton's Anne Boleyn and…
WHAT LARKS… There is a swimming-pool ladder, a rubber-ring shaped like a swan, a robotic golf cart, some decorative flamingos (one used as a weapon) , and a statue of Queen E…
GUEST REVIEWER CHARLOTTE VALORI MARVELS AT GREEK PERFECTION AT GRIMEBORN Like the roar of an older, bolder London, Mark-Anthony Turnage's GREEK bounces snarling onto the Grimeborn stage, cel…
LA PETITE PIAF, REVENANTE..   I grew up with Piaf, a temporary French schoolchild in 1960, skated around the patinoire with my friends snarling along with the endless plays of "J…
GUEST REVIEWER CHARLOTTE VALORI FINDS THE BOYS GET ALL THE DRAMA AT GRIMEBORN Lucia di Lammermoor is an opera of shocking brutality, with savage emotional aggression rivalling physical viole…
DREAMS AND LEGENDS OF DECAY Brian Friel's gift is humane ambiguity, refusing to allow tidy judgements on his characters . Or even – though his theme is Ireland's history…
HIP HOP HURRAH ON THE WRONG SIDE OF THE TRACKS Here's a hot one, in every sense. Clapped till my hands stuck together at this youthful, truthful, touching and funny tale of acroba…
GUEST REVIEWER CHARLOTTE VALORI FINDS REVOLUTION NOT GOING FAR IN A WORLD PREMIERE AT GRIMEBORN Prometheus stole fire from the gods in order to ensure human progress, and met with a grisly e…
A HANDBAG?  You're not often given a surprise by Lane the butler in in his short appearance,  as he delivers those immortally celebrated cucumber sandwiches to the piano-st…
DANCE AND DEFIANCE BELOW THE WAVES    Metta theatre's hit JUNGLE BOOK was fashionably hip-hop before Hamilton hit (and was certainly the only time I ever heard gri…
GUEST CRITIC  and sharp-eyed millennial BEN BLACKMORE DOES THE STATE (well, theatrecat) SOME SERVICE…. Rating three   box office shakeapearesglobe.com  to 13 Oct I have ne…
RETROMANIA AS A ROAD TO RUIN In a lovely dolls-house set, Judy bustles about happily in a gay flouncy full skirt and pinny. She runs hubby's morning bath, makes his packed…
GUEST REVIEWER CHARLOTTE VALORI VOTES FOR ETHEL SMYTH AT GRIMEBORN The celebrations of the centenary of Women's Suffrage in Britain have reached Dalston's cultural heartland as Spectra Ensem…
MADNESS, MENACE, MAJESTY        You need not be aged – or even a man – to be a memorable Lear. But there is an intense and concentrated emotion to …
