846 stories by "Friends"
GRACE PERVADES    Theatre Royal Bath   Theatre is fond of sending itself love letters, albeit " from Sheridan's The Critic to Frayn's Noises Off " often prudently…
A WILD NIGHT WITH COUNT TOLSTOY    Even those who haven't read Tolstoy's great novel know about the train under which the despairing Anna will die.  So it dominates f…
PHYSICAL, PIRATICAL, PLAYFUL    All aboard the Jolly Todger, where Long John Silver's parrot Alexa (she comes from the Amazon, get it?) keeps accidentally ordering unwanted C…
DREAM ON!    Five years on,  beyond Covid lockdowns and its magnificent Guys and Dolls, here again is the Bridge's irresistible multi-mouse take on Shakespeare's sunniest comed…
WHY RATTIGAN COUNTS Quite a rare outing for this very late Terence Rattigan play, written after his star had fallen under the assault of mouthy Osborne, Amis and the "angry young men" wh…
BROWN BRITISH LIVES, FROM ENOCH TO SUNAK  Sathnam Sanghera's novel drew on his own life, partly homage to Arnold Bennett and with some echoes of Priestley too, joined the fine chronic…
It is indeed PLUTO not Apollo who rules the Underworld. Was tired. Apologies to all classicists.
SONDHEIM AND THE STYX  I last saw this 405BC Greek classic in Spymonkey's version and found it " sorry " unfroggettable. Giant puppetry, a community chorus tap-dancing as frogs w…
DROWNING PASSION,  TIMELESS RESCUE Marvellous play, this: wrenches the heart out of you , patches it up and sets it back on the hard road of life and love. It wrenched Terence Rattig…
I said it all at the Royal Court " https://theatrecat.com/2024/11/09/giant-royal-court-theatre/ " and it is an event not to miss, especially the way the world is in 2025.   Ev…
WELL WORTH THE MONEYPENNY     This is glorious: just what we all needed.  In the company's spirit of never wasting a terrible joke, I absolutely Bond-ed to it.  Follow…
HOME AND FAMILY, BEAUTY AND SADNESS  Few days late to the party with this , poor old theatrecat having seemed to fall off the press list; but very well worth the ticket (Old Vic prici…
AFFLUENZA APOCALYPSE    As Aubrey de Mandeville puts it in the great Antrobus books, "God, here's a strange lozenge-shaped affair!"  Buñuel meets Monty Python,  cour…
 A MODERN CLASSIC DONE WITH VIGOUR  Michael Frayn's play-about-actors is always welcome: a comic masterpiece and loving study in theatre's own absurdity. The first act shows a final l…
   A SATIRICAL WARNING FROM OLD UKRAINE    Not long ago a rompingly funny version of Gogol's satire on official incompetence ran at Marylebone ( https://theatrecat.co…
MATHILDE AND THE BUILDER (can he fix it? Probably not)      The set is glassand towering, city-chic backed by reeds and seashore; the figures before us NYC glamorous, …
WINNERS, WAGS AND WRONGS Well, here's a summer romp.  Hot on the heels of Tom Hiddleston in a disco version up Drury Lane, here's the RSC take on one of the sunniest Shakespe…
TWO WOMEN, LONG YEARS ACROSS HALF A CONTINENT    1935: below projected headlines about Communists executed in Shanghai and the war between Japan and Red China comes an audition c…
A HAMLET THAT STANDS ALONE "is it not monstrous that this player here,But in a fiction, in a dream of passion,Could force his soul so to his own conceitThat from her working all his visage w…
RIEN TO REGRET!  This is a terrific, impassioned production: not only does Kimberley Sykes' direction and Michele Meazza' s movement work keep it watchably, startlingly vigorous, …
TRAGEDY WITHOUT A MORAL   Raoul Moat used steroids and bulking-powder to armour himself in muscle, nourished a bottomless well of grievance and self-pity , and imposed his ne…
THE DEPTHS BELOW THE WIT   The plays, ever revived, we know well; the wit is often cited, the old injustice of his downfall recreated in plays and films: most recently we…
VENEZIANA !    Buongiorno to Venice 1730, a city stage topped with the golden winged lion of St Mark, arched and curtained and lit with candelabras . Overhead a twelve-pie…
DARK FANGTASY IN A SCAFFOLDING CITY   For this compact and creepy little atmospheric treat, John Donnelly turns to vampires. That's not a spoiler: the programme is full of learned st…
BEYOND QATAR…       Two years ago this show was a pleasure " (https://theatrecat.com/2023/06/21/dear-england-olivier-se1/) , and now, on the far side of …
