1,405 stories from theatrecat.com
LUKE JONES WANTED TO CARE, BUT SOMEHOW.. Running again through the plot of this play l in my head, I think 'surely it's gripping'.? Coffins of martyrs are continuing to stack u…
DICKENS UNCHAINED Good to see the Old Vic auditorium in the round again (a Spacey innovation). Though this time, there's a long transverse thrust stage enabling Marley's ghost …
RUFF WORK: AN ELIZABETHAN MORALITY FOR TODAY This is a devilish cunning ploy from Anders Lustgarten – an impassioned critic of state and social policies, sometimes a bit …
A GLORIOUS, GANGLING, GRACEFUL PRESENT FROM SHEFFIELD This is glorious. Hits the bullseye. It's about kids – the boiling mass of hormones that is a year 11 class grappling with GCSEs a…
MANTRAS AND MONEY There is a useful play to be written about the lure of fashionable Western Buddhist retreats, and the way discontented rat-racers can transfer their competitive ambi…
AN ANCIENT CRY, A TIMELESS THRILL Across 25 centuries comes a harsh cry: not of war, Â not from savage male throats but from a swaying, chanting, defiant chorus of young women deman…
GUEST REVIEWER CHARLOTTE VALORI MEETS MINDFULNESS IN THE MIDST OF TOLKIEN'S TIMEWASTING J.R.R. Tolkien, among many other things, is famous for two: his unending ability to procrastinate, and…
SEX, SHAME , THE STROP OF THE RAZOR I rashly confessed on Twitter that I spent the afternoon before this astringent production of a Strindberg play revelling in the happy furry…
PROFIT AND  A PROPHET: RANTINGS AND RATINGS I came to  this a day late for tedious domestic reasons, but since the original film is about a news anchor , Howard Beale, go…
MULTIPLE CHOICE IN A MANIPULATED WORLD "We in this country" says the red judge grandly "Do not have trial by media or by mobs". Hmm. Tell that to anyone now staring confusedly …
NEW GENERATION REVIEWER MICHAEL ADAIR UNMOVED BY MANSPREADING BUT LOVES THE SWEARING The return of Glengarry Glen Ross feels rather timely. There is something striking about a play consistin…
A PERFECT TWELVE "What country, friend, is this?" That soon becomes clear, in this beautiful rendition of Shakespeare's melancholy comedy of love and misapprehension. From the first g…
LIGHTS OUT,, CLUTCH YOUR SEAT To be honest I was slightly daunted by the PR point that Karina Jones is the first blind actress in recent years to play Susy (hers was the Audrey Hepbur…
LITTLE NELL, ON THE ROAD AGAIN Of all Dickens' works this – originally a serial so gripping that American readers rushed the docks for the new edition – is such a f…
THE LONELY HEARTS OF WARTIME If you need relief from the current outbreak of extreme social primness about male behaviour, you're going to love the bit with Clive Francis , as the eld…
WHOSE BABY? It is a brave theme that Chris Thompson – a former social worker – has chosen. It is also a darkly, and accidentally, topical one since a court case is sti…
GUEST REVIEWER CHARLOTTE VALORI LOSES HER HEART TO HOODLUMS Even ruthless, psychotic gangsters have to fall in love sometimes. And Rodelinda is all about what happens when the people at the …
ROISTERING AND REVOLUTION There is a nice contrarian quality about Nicholas Hytner’s choice for his first production, in the dramatically beautiful new theatre he founded with N…
SHADOWS OF WAR AND LOSS Not a good week for AA Milne. That "Goodbye Christopher Robin" film about his WW1 trauma comes out – then Philip Pullman sounds off scornfully about how …
GUEST REVIEWER CHARLOTTE VALORI FINDS HALF-TERM HEAVEN AT NORWICH PUPPET THEATRE “Have you ever wondered where dreams come from? Or how they get into your head?” A thought-provok…
THE SCIENTIST AND THE SEX SYMBOL, IN A PARANOID WORLD The uneasy 1950s: Albert Einstein is exiled in America and called to appear before the unAmerican Activities committee for…
CLUNTERING FLAPPYSKETS ! Â DON’T SMITTLE AND SKRYKE , IT’S BARRIE AGAIN… By 'eck, luv! They Northern Broadsides, they weren't hid behind t'mangle when they were ha…
A LESSON IN POLITICS, HUMANITY AND LOVE The joyful thing about James Graham is that for all the playwright's youth, diamond wit and forensic insight, there is a deep humankindl…
AFTER THE WARS WERE OVER… This is a lovely rediscovery, the kind of thing Two's Company has repeatedly offered us in this enterprising theatre (we owe them those extraordinar…
GUEST CRITIC Â MICHAEL ADAIR Â ENCOUNTERS IBSEN’S BRACING RAGE Ibsen's 1889 work, The Lady From the Sea has washed ashore at the Donmar in a new version written by Elinor Co…
