Tom Stoppard’s play directed by Patrick Marber has transferred from the Menier Chocolate Factory – but what have critics been saying about it?
The Guardian: **** “spins from one literary form to another, like a wind machine sending fragments into the air.”
WhatsOnStage: **** “this superb revival does the piece absolute justice.”
The Telegraph: **** “Marber’s finely calibrated revival gives a champagne effervescence to the densely plotted exchanges on Marxism, capitalism and the like, while the performances throughout are blissful.”
Broadway World: **** “There’s always a danger that, given its head, Stoppard’s cleverness can bulldoze all in its path. Here, Marber tempers it with just enough nonsense, and finds the funny without losing the hammer concealed at the heart of this riotous, necessary piece of cultural vandalism.”
The Arts Desk: “The production, joyously responsive to Stoppard’s theatricality.”
Love London Love Culture: **** ” Let the language wash over you and just appreciate the talented performances of all the cast who certainly put all of their enthusiasm into the show. Bizarrely entertaining.”
Time Out: **** “This is brainy stuff, a young playwright’s cocky display of intellectual dick-swinging, but it’s also intensely entertaining and infectiously theatrical.”
The Daily Mail: **** “Marber’s production, which stands on the virtuoso turns of his actors, does not disappoint.”
Evening Standard: **** “here’s a show to put some much-needed snap, crackle and pop into the West End.”
London Theatre.co.uk: **** “Equal part bonkers and fabulous it’s like a Rubik’s cube for the mind.”
London Theatre1: ***** “Travesties is an opportunity to engage with clever concepts, without gauche self-indulgence – it is funny, charming and cuts through the state of the world like a knife, as resonant to the enduring themes of human creativity and emotion as it was in its first performances in 1974.”
West End Wilma: *** “this historical farce is a blast from the past adding a unique sense of intelligence to physically humorous staging, leaving each audience to have at least some access to such high-brow comedy.”
British Theatre Guide: “more accessible by slowing it down and redistributing some of the longer speeches, now less the studied lectures they were. But in the process, for me, he has lost some of that runaway horse quality.”
Theatre Weekly: **** “Travesties won’t be to everyone’s taste and those unfamiliar with the piece before sitting down in the auditorium may feel out of the loop, but overall the double act of Hollander and Fox, supported by an able cast, make this a funny and touching step back in time.”
British Theatre.com: **** “At a time when the role of the arts is as hotly discussed as ever, Stoppard’s play could not be timelier. Travesties both baffles and intrigues; a masterful piece of writing that will leave you thinking all the way home.”
London Box Office: *** “It looks gorgeous on an expressionistic set of towering library bookcases, full of secret panels and the cast attack their labyrinthine roles with speed, clarity and wit but I felt alienated through out by how smugly pleased with itself the play is.”
The Times: **** “In another reality perhaps all plays are like this. Here on Earth as we know it, Tom Stoppard’s intellectual rom-com memory play meets historical farcical slamdown — with added limericks — is a glorious one of a kind.”
Broadway Baby: **** “Whilst you do need to sit up and take notice of each word being teased on stage, allow yourself to go on the whole journey and ignore the slight bumps on the road that you may experience.”
Travesties is booking at the Apollo Theatre until the 29th April 2017. To book tickets visit:Ticketmaster.co.uk, Discount Theatre.com, ATG Tickets, Last Minute.com, Theatre Tickets Direct.co.uk, Love Theatre.com, Theatre People.com and UK Tickets.co.uk.