If we think we suffer from a paranoid cancel-culture, we should note this reminder of mid-1950s America – notably Hollywood – in the McCarthyite witch-hunt against suspected communists. Retrograde at the Kiln Theatre is a three-hander by Ryan Calais Cameron (who gave us For Black Boys…). It lays out in 90 minutes real time – though sometimes too slowly – a meeting in a movie office.
Mates blogger: Libby Purves
Libby Purves is one of over 45 theatre bloggers who are part of the MyTheatreMates collective. This page features Libby's posts on MyTheatreMates. Take a look at our full list of theatre bloggers and our aggregated feed of all our Mates' posts. We’re always looking for new theatre bloggers. Could that be you? Learn about how to join us.
Libby Purves was theatre critic for The Times from 2010 to 2013. Determined to continue her theatre commentary after losing that job, she set up her own site www.theatrecat.com in October 2013. She personally reviews all major London openings, usually with on-the-night publication, and also gives voice to a new generation of critics with occasional guest 'theatrekittens'. In addition to her theatre writing and myriad other credits, Libby has been a presenter on BBC Radio 4’s Midweek for over 30 years. She is also the author of a dozen novels, and numerous non-fiction titles. In 1999, Libby was appointed an OBE for services to journalism.
The latest from Libby on MyTheatreMates
‘It gets you with its musical energy & defiant storytelling’: THE SECRET LIFE OF BEES – Almeida Theatre
The playwright Lynn Nottage – double Pulitzer winner – has plunged here into a full musical version of Sue Monk Kidd’s rather odd novel The Secret Life of Bees at the Almeida Theatre. The lyrics (excellent ones) are by Susan Birkenhead and the music by Duncan Sheik. It’s bluesy, a bit gospelly, sometimes rock, all wonderfully sung. As the characters develop the songs offer every nuance from romantic gentleness to the immense defiant ‘Hold this House Together!’ anthem near the end.
‘The thoughtful richness of the play is fully realised’: DANCING AT LUGHNASA – National Theatre ★★★★
Sadness and failure have their own grandeur, like the bleak back-hills projected behind Robert Jones’ sweeping vista of a set. In Josie Rourke’s deeply atmospheric production of Dancing At Lughnasa at the National Theatre, rural Donegal desolation looms behind small domesticity, just as the pagan wildness of human nature threatens the threadbare sedateness of Catholicism.
‘Readers of the book will not be disappointed’: HAMNET – Stratford-upon-Avon
It’s a joy to have the intimate Swan auditorium open again, refurbished after going dark in the first sudden Covid closure, and to see once again a strong, nimble RSC ensemble conjuring up the past in Hamnet.
‘Infuriating, self-consciously poetic piece’: SEA CREATURES – Hampstead Theatre
We are not meant to be sure of anything, but the author is no Florin Zeller. What we do know is that the infuriating, self-consciously poetic piece Sea Creatures at the Hampstead Theatre was written by Cordelia Lynn during a four week writers’ “residency” in America.
‘Irresistible, awful, immortal’: HAY FEVER – Sonning ★★★★
I don’t always make it through the Oxfordshire lanes to the gorgeous, eccentric, water-wheeled Mill at Sonning, but the thought of Issy van Randwyck as Judith Bliss in Hay Fever lured me. Caught the show en route to the airport, so I started writing this on a Croatian long-distance bus.
‘Anne Reid does an uncanny turn’: MARJORIE PRIME – Menier Chocolate Factory
Artificial intelligence and robotics have long been a boon to us ethical-scifi buffs, films like AI and I, Robot mercifully saving us from rocket ships and aliens called Xzxvyvrgg. In Jordan Harrison’s play Marjorie Prime at the Menier Chocolate Factory it is inner space – and a recognisable world – which gets invaded by parasitic cyberthink.
‘Tip your hat & get down there’: GUYS & DOLLS – Bridge Theatre ★★★★★
Daniel Mays has played a lot of tough-guy roles but has by nature a rather innocent and worried-looking face. It is this quality that Nicholas Hytner spotted as perfect for his Nathan Detroit in Guys & Dolls at the Bridge Theatre: lowlife but hapless, indecisive about the faff and cost of marrying his tolerant fiancee of 14 years standing, Miss Adelaide (an irresistible Marisha Wallace).
‘Let critics sniff, audiences will leave feeling cheerful’: THE TIME MACHINE – Touring
The script for Time Machine by Steven Canny and John Nicholson takes the 19 century novella as a springboard for a three-person meta-theatrical romp in show-goes-wrong style, the fourth wall abolished and the audience primed for involvement.
‘Every public servant should see it. Every voter, too’: GRENFELL: SYSTEM FAILURE – The Tabernacle ★★★★★
Grenfell: System Failure at The Tabernacle isn’t just telling us about one tower, one fire, one multiple tragedy, but bristles with salutary warnings for politics, administration and simple professionalism across a range of duties and disciplines.
‘There are a lot of good lines here’: JUMPING THE SHARK – Touring
SITCOMS MADE US, BUT CAN WE MAKE THEM? It’s a very good idea, bang on the money: David Cantor and Michael Kingsbury (TV sitcom writers with a pedigree) set their play in a bland provincial hotel where five … Continue reading →
‘It’s an achievement, a proper story’: STANDING AT THE SKY’S EDGE – National Theatre ★★★★
It’s an architectural moment. Within the stark brutalist NT is a set in homage to a brutalist landmark: the early 1960s Park Hill Flats in Sheffield, the largest listed building in the world. In Standing At The Sky’s Edge at the National Theatre three generations of tenants interweave in the clean-lined kitchen and living room, ghosts in one another’s lives, telling in their very existence a universal story of postwar British cities.
‘Magnificent’: THE LEHMAN TRILOGY – Gillian Lynne Theatre ★★★★★
Three hour-long plays, two intervals, three men in black frock-coats explain some financial history in a revolving glass box in front of a projected, mainly monochrome, cyclorama. When The Lehman Trilogy triumphed at the National Theatre in 2018 I wrote “this show has no right to be so much fun”. Recast and home again, it still is a treat after waltzing Broadway and LA and winning a Tony for Best Play.
‘Sharp, credible & funny’: LINCK & MULHAHN – Hampstead Theatre
The story of Linck and Mulhahn in 1722 is the backbone of a fascinating story which inspires a playful tragicomedy from Ruby Thomas at the Hampstead Theatre, who has already dazzled us twice downstairs in this theatre which discovers new writers and tends them well.
‘A writer who knew that you must both entertain & awaken’: WATCH ON THE RHINE – Donmar Warehouse
HELLMAN’S LESSON IN HUMANITY Theatre can offer few more topical messages for a nation which might hesitate over Ukraine’s needs than this neglected one-set domestic play by Lilian Hellman. It is an artfully jolting picture of a comfortable, … Continue reading →
‘Its heart is in the right place’: IN THE NET – Jermyn Street Theatre
Most dystopian visions set themselves quite far in the future. However, for In The Net at the Jermyn Street Theatre Misha Levkov keeps us in 2025, specifying that productions should always be set a couple of years ahead of real time, and the setting is London – Kentish Town. This does keep it recognisable and clear of sci-fi fantasy, but it also demands that Britain has gone downhill dramatically fast.
‘It drew me in ever more’: ALLEGIANCE – Charing Cross Theatre ★★★★
AN OLD INJUSTICE REMEMBERED An old man steps onstage alone: upright, soldierly in khaki as a former US war hero who is, he says resignedly, “brought out every year on the Pearl Harbour anniversary” . … Continue reading →
‘Fall in love with Corrin maybe, but don’t expect a thunderclap’: ORLANDO – Garrick Theatre
One bespectacled, anxious-looking Virginia Woolf in a sensible brown skirt and dreary cardigan is never enough, so Michael Grandage’s production of Orlando at the Garrick Theatre generously opens with a whole pack of Woolfs – nine of them – in Neil Bartlett’s new version of the author’s classic whimsical-feminist fantasy.
‘It’s a show where the ensemble are the star’: NEWSIES – Troubadour Wembley Park Theatre ★★★★
I love it when the theatre perfectly fits the show. Artists can overcome a wrong space, but there’s gleeful concord when it suits this well. The vast new hangar-like Troubadour uses all its height and industrial chic to convey New York 1899 in Newsies: fire-escapes, iron balconies, vast billboard for the Santa Fe railroad, walls all newsprint and windows and washing lines.
‘A story of great-heartedness’: MANDELA – Young Vic Theatre ★★★★
This world premiere of Mandela at the Young Vic Theatre, by Laiona Michelle and composers Shaun and Greg Dean Borowsky, acknowledges “proud partnership” with his family, tells the story with impassioned and rightly partisan simplicity. Michael Luwoye is a towering Mandela: idealistic, sorrowful at violence, deploying his familiar humour and unresentful humanity.