theatreCat

THEY'RE BACK. SO AM I. Well, you know by now how it is with me and Mischief Theatre. All the way from 2013's first west end outing to the new Thespians (https://theatrecat.com/2026/05/14/thespians-mercury-colchester-and-touring/) . I am a devotee. To borr

WHEN THE SAGE OF SCARBOROUGH SAW THROUGH THE SWINGING 'SIXTIES 1969: nearly half a century ago, and this was Alan Ayckbourn's breakthrough. Philip Breen's direction respects the author's taste for in-the-round production (which the Old Vic can do, since S

A LEGEND REBORN On a sweltering opening night under the trees, what more can you ask than fresh life and passion flung into a famous show which had become, frankly, a bit of an eye-roll? And suddenly to find that it's a 19-year-old understudy playing the

SHAKESPEARE: OUTDOOR, OUTRAGEOUS AND OPEN-HEARTED Start by knowing that this is a bangingly entertaining evening out under the Suffolk skies, with ragamuffin costumes and lovely ramshackle beach-huts under the great chestnut tree. Red Rose Chain has been

THE SEASON BEGINS! Not doing formal mouse-rate reviews of these, but for local eyes and visitors it's worth nipping through the ones I can get to - this one is around all week, before moving on to Southwold and I can report that director Charlotte Parry a

TROUBLED HEARTS AND TORCH SONGS When someone pops a sticker on your cameraphone at the door it generally means a performer is going to get their kit off, repeatedly. Not in this caseI am relieved to say, though this 90-minute chamber musical does have one

FLOWERS, PHONETICS, PHABULOUS Always a joy to have them back: the phoneticist and the flower-girl, born to enthral one another and us. Cheers first for Keziah Ibe as Eliza, fresh out of Arts Ed on a first professional job. She eooowessand garrrrns at the

AMBITION, LOVE AND CHOICES IN AN OLDER IRELAND Jonathan Bank's Mint Theater company lately gave us an arresting revival of Miles Malleson's Yours Unfaithfully in this theatre, and here he is reinvigorating another 1930s play, this time by the near-forgott

SOLDIERING AND SACRIFICE . This is one of the RSC's big hitters: five stars everywhere ,and promoted more as comedy than the romantic-chivalric classic it is, Rostand's 19c tragic epic in hexamers, set in Franco-Spanish wars of the 17c. So, having missed

1939: TWO NATIONS, TWO MEN, TWO WIVES It has a familiar sitcom structure: a couple whose marriage is not what it respectably seems, making anxious preparations for weekend guests. Said guests unaware of bohemian structures beneath the necessary decorum of