This jolly adaptation of Virginia Woolf’s Orlando by Sarah Ruhl, directed con brio by Stella Powell-Jones, is a 90-minute treat and holiday too.
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
‘A watercolour on the landing of middle life’: MIDDLE – National Theatre ★★★
David Eldridge’s play Middle at the National Theatre’s Dorfman space is a sketch, a watercolour on the landing of middle life: sensitive, accomplished but not likely to stop you in your tracks.
‘Waves of affection lap around him’: BARRY HUMPHRIES: THE MAN BEHIND THE MASK – Touring
Barry Humphries is 88, five shows into a 27-date tour, The Man Behind The Mask, and this time he is presented as himself, the trickiest character of all.
‘It feels as if she has been pulling houses to their feet for decades’: PRIMA FACIE – Harold Pinter Theatre
Jodie Comer’s extraordinary West End stage debut in Suzie Miller’s play Prima Facie at the Harold Pinter Theatre reveals not only strong vocal skill but an absolutely dazzling physical expressiveness and high-voltage emotional power.
Do we still love Rooster? Reflections on the return of Jez Butterworth’s Jerusalem
Twelve years on from Jez Butterworth’s glorious shock-troop assault on metropolitan sensibilities, we welcome back Ultz’s woodland glade and knackered caravan, and surf along with Ian Rickson’s bravura direction.
‘This is Bertie Carvel’s show, his Donald Trump is magnificent’: THE 47th – Old Vic Theatre ★★★★
Bertie Carvel as Donald Trump is magnificent. Eerily so, capturing not only the ex-President’s showmanship, the gestures and unwholesomely needy yet threatening charm, but moving beyond caricature.
‘The vigour of the staging, & fine performances, leave you exhilarated as well as sad’: DIARY OF A SOMEBODY – Seven Dials Playhouse ★★★
The tiny Actors’ Centre is reborn under its new name, and since this play is set in what was a traditionally febrile, theatrical, subversively arty quarter in the 50s and 60s before it got chichi, it’s a good place to remember Joe Orton and his killing.
‘An overlong, ill-conceived & pretentious evening’: DADDY – Almeida Theatre ★★
Jeremy O’Taylor is a much-feted American playwright (a Tony for Slave Play) adept at drilling in to the moment: BLM, fashionable white guilt, showy theatricality and retro-intellectual themes.
‘Aaron Sorkin’s stage adaptation is a freestanding triumph’: TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD – West End ★★★★★
Aaron Sorkin worked on this play in the age of Trump and of Black Lives Matter, and it shows. A fusillade of trigger warnings reminds us that it cannot be handled without numerous racial slurs and acknowledgment of violence, sexual and otherwise.
‘You either leave this show vowing to devote your life to musical theatre or to never go near one again’: MARIA FRIEDMAN & FRIENDS – Menier Chocolate Factory
At the end of the evening the great diva, director and muse informs us that we too must sing. In a packed house, on the far side of a pandemic, which made us fear one another’s very breath, we join the posse of old-timers and ingenu(e)s.
‘This play just gets more & more topical, with its cathartic storm of mutual offence’: CLYBOURNE PARK – Park Theatre ★★★★
In 2010, Bruce Norris’ play wowed the Royal Court: this is a ten-year anniversary (well, plus two years lost to Covid) so forgive me for quoting what I wrote then.
‘Ralph Fiennes gives it everything… He is irresistible’: STRAIGHT LINE CRAZY – Bridge Theatre ★★★★
It is not often I resort to drawing in the notebook, but there it is: half an hour into the first part of David Hare’s play about the city planner Robert Moses, whose demonic energy built modern New York between the 1920s and the ’60s.
‘A quirky, comic four-hander celebrating a 40-year partnership’: THE MARRIAGE OF ALICE B TOKLAS BY GERTRUDE STEIN – Jermyn Street Theatre ★★★★
With typical wit, the doughty little Jermyn has captured an intellectual-farcical oddity from New York, complete with author-director and star. Tom Littler signed them up for 2020, with obvious results, but lured them back.
‘Taron Egerton is utterly at home in the theatre’: COCK – West End ★★★★
Mike Bartlett’s mischievous, half-earnest play is about a gay man wrestling with his identity (and his furious partner) after falling for a woman. Who he loves both as a person and – to his confusion – as an anatomy. It’s clever to revive it in this even more gender-anxious time.
‘Art is about hearts not dollars, a sacred human magic’: THE COLLABORATION – Young Vic Theatre ★★★★
Two artists in a studio: Andy Warhol and Jean Michel Basquiat. They have been put there to collaborate in 1980s New York.
‘Zeller is like a more humane early Stoppard’: THE FOREST – Hampstead Theatre ★★★★
The French novelist-turned-playwright Florian Zeller hit the British theatre scene a few years ago with two comedies: The Lie and The Truth, which at the time I described as “a punch-in-the-guts, cruelly affectionate, whip-smart ninety-minute treat”.
‘Even great clowns & great stars need a bit of loving friendship’: SPIKE – Watermill Theatre, Newbury ★★★★
Spike Milligan, our hero, was a force of disruptive fun, joy and disrespect compared to whom our calculatedly Insta-friendly “edgy” moderns are toddlers.
‘Spectacular in staging, fast-moving & engrossing’: LIFE OF PI – West End ★★★★
The famous oversized Bengal tiger snarled personally in my face. I had wanted to see the puppetry, of course.
‘Genius programming for winter 2022’: FORCE MAJEURE – Donmar Warehouse ★★★
Inspired programming here. You’d find a decent overlap in any January Venn diagram of regular Donmar audiences and people who wish they were skiing.
‘There’s a truthful dramatic core to the whole venture’: FOLK – Hampstead Theatre ★★★★
There’s a lovely serendipity. The main theatre is running Peggy for You while the little downstairs space has Nell Leyshon’s rather lovely new play imagining Cecil Sharp collecting folk-songs in Somerset.