1,405 stories from theatrecat.com
CATHY, STILL NOT HOME AFTER FIFTY YEARS Homeless charities like to remind us of the mantra: we are all just two bad decisions away from the pavement. The trajectory of our heroine Cat…
SHORT, SHARP, STIMULATING    The INK new writing festival (http://inkfestival.org) is a phenomenon: a space where writers of any experience or none can submit short plays …
FROTHING OVER WITH FEMALE HILARITY A pre-curtain ensemble of one harpsichord and a quartet of periwigged lady saxophonists, playing Mozart with a touch of oompah, is always…
IT'S THAT SHOW AGAIN, AND VERY WELCOME TOO It's WW2 themed. Gas masks, posters, programmes in an ARP fire-bucket and rude songs to cheer the troops on leave and show Hitler that Brita…
HARD HOMECOMINGS FOR THE DOGS OF WAR Boots, boots, boots, boots: stamping out the immemorial rhythm of army discipline, nineteen men and women move as one, expressionless, freed for a…
A SOLO REFLECTION ON PUBERTY AND AFTER. Naomi Sheldon's solo, semi-autobiographical hour comes from Edinburgh crowned with plaudits, though cunningly in the programme she does …
FOR ONCE IN A LIFETIME THE DEAR MENIER DOES NOT MAKE GUEST REVIEWER LUKE JONES HAPPY. NOT HAPPY AT ALL.  EXCEPT AT THE PROJECTIONS. Two prisoners are locked in an Argent…
IT'S THAT MAN AGAIN… It is awkward that two major new productions of the Scottish Play, by two determinedly auteurish directors, open in the same month. Rufus Norris' bleak "pos…
GUEST CRITIC JENNIFER-JANE BENJAMIN FINDS WHAT MATTERS Lights up. A confederate statue. A blackout. And it disappears. It's November 1963 and we're in Lake Charles, Louisiana. JFK has…
SILENT, SIGNIFICANT CREATURES The candlelit Wanamaker has proved its worth as a music-room, notably with All The Angels and the divine Farinelli. This takes it further with the first …
 DANGEROUS DAYS AND COURAGEOUS SCIENCE This terrific meteorological thriller, set in the crucial days before D-Day, is written by – and stars – David Haig. In 20…
FREE HANKY WITH EVERY PROGRAMME (honest..!) Ten years ago Emma Rice and her Kneehigh group brought this adaptation of Noel Coward’s heartrending film to the stage – to a c…
A DARK SEASIDE PARABLE If there is one stumbling block for lovers of Graham Greene's darkly thrilling gangster novel, it is the elegance of Gloria Onitiri. She is Ida; and Gree…
DICKENS EXCEEDING Â EXPECTATIONS Putting great literary masterpieces onstage is an erratic business. Within the same week we see the Artistic Director of the National Theatre…
SACRED AND PROFANE LOVE Is love a Gothic Cathedral, a yearning for a permanent, holy, respectful connection to the best in our nature? Or is it lust and fun, animal attraction,…
THE SCOTTISH PLAY, DARK AND DANK You don't expect robes and battlements these days. This is a shaven-head-and-machete Macbeth, its theme an indeterminate, timeless squalor: pos…
LOVE AND THE NOT-FOR-MARRYING MAN Love stories take many forms. Here – electric, understated, unmistakeable and timeless – the erotic connection is between Ben Batt's Geor…
MA'AM , THE MINION AND THE MACHO MAN "I never boasted an education. I learned tricks" says Princess Margaret, bitterly, at a late point in Richard Stirling's interesting but fr…
SIN OR SYMPTOM? A HUMAN TURNED TO A HORROR Last time I encountered a monologue written for a paedophile abuser, it was by Alan Bennett in a remarkable – and I think unrep…
FAIRY DUST AND PHYSICAL COMEDY I am happy to say that in the second act there is some inappropriate sexual harassment. By garishly clad fairies, deploying weaponized soprano trills an…
A CITY'S MEMORY Two girls on the Downs in 1940 giggle over a spot of rabbit-poaching on Lady Cooper's land. A roar, Junkers overhead. Figures emerge from smoke and darkness as a chant…
A WATCHFUL SORROW There are some evenings when, as the cast take their bow with that half-relaxed half-smile, you are shocked: you feel you have not been watching a performance…
CELEBRATION FOR A CITY Right place, right time, a last flurry of fireworks by the Humber. The hottest of young playwrights, James Graham, lovingly teases the city where he was a stude…
BANKERS AS LIBERATORSÂ The first recitative line in this one-act musical, as the little band sounds curfew, is chilling: a Town Crier from the 1760's : "Jews and aliens of F…
YOU HAVE TO LAUGH OR YOU WOULD WEEP.. The most arresting new character I've met this year is the magnificent Hayley Atwell as Jenny; star of a New York private equity investmen…
