As You Like It (Bridge Project) @ The Old Vic
August 18, 2010
The Bridge Project, the transatlantic theatre tour directed by Sam Mendes, is now in its second year, and this year’s pairing brought As You Like It and The Tempest to the Old Vic. Unlike last year’s Winter’s Tale, where accents were used to distinguish between the characters of Sicily and Bohemia, here the English and …
Double Falsehood (KDC) @ The Union Theatre
While the claims of KDC to be presenting the 21st century premiere of Double Falsehood are at best questionable (a more accurate claim would be "the 21st century premiere of a play calling itself Double Falsehood"), the long-established London amateur company certainly offered a significant event in the public performance of this long-neglected play. Riding …
The Shoemaker’s Holiday (Black Sun) @ The Dell, Stratford–upon–Avon
August 9, 2010
Writing about web page http://www.blacksuntheatre.com/ Since its institution during the Complete Works Festival, the Stratford open air festival at the Dell has become an annual event, offering free theatre to Stratford passers-by. While it’s now relocated slightly further along the river, the spirit of the outdoor performances has remained the same: accessible, entertaining and pleasantly …
The Comedy of Errors @ Shakespeare’s Globe
July 28, 2010
That’ll teach me to let the weather affect my theatre-going. I was booked in to see the Globe’s touring production of Comedy of Errors at Coventry Cathedral on Monday night, but after a very poor work day and with the weather looking extremely gloomy, I decided to pass on my tickets. The plan was, instead, …
Song of the Goat’s Macbeth
July 14, 2010
Writing about web page http://www.barbican.org.uk/theatre/event-detail.asp?ID=11061&utm_source=SilverpopMailing&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=CCSBIT140710A&utm_content=101%20weekly%20artform%20email Very exciting this. Coming to the Barbican in November is the long-awaited Macbeth by Song of the Goat Theatre. This is the production that was premiered as a work-in-progress during the RSC’s Complete Works Festival, and even back then it was a breathtakingly physical and visceral collection of scenes. Don’t …
Double Falsehood (Warwick Shakespeare Society) @ Warwick Arts Centre
June 27, 2010
Today was the Warwick Shakespeare Society’s rehearsed reading of Double Falsehood, which I’ve been involved in as a sort of dramaturg. I’ve already covered the rehearsal process in detail here, here and here, so this is just a quick note on the final performance, which I was finally able to sit down and enjoy. I …
Arden of Faversham (Em–Lou Productions) @ The Rose Theatre Bankside
June 23, 2010
The programme for this year’s second Arden of Faversham, at the Rose in Bankside, advertises it as "England’s Oldest Tragic Comedy" (as opposed to tragicomedy, which of course the play is emphatically not). While tragic comedy sounds like something Bottom might put on, it’s not a bad description of a play which is unavoidably funny …
Me and Orson Welles
June 22, 2010
This film comes as something of a holiday having recently written a performance history of Julius Caesar for the RSC Shakespeare single edition. Telling the story of Orson Welles’s seminal production of the play at New York’s Mercury Theatre in 1937 from the point of view of the actor playing Lucius, it’s a lovely slice …
Women Beware Women (National) @ The Olivier, London
June 9, 2010
Following The Revenger’s Tragedy a couple of summers back, Middleton is back on the Olivier stage, this time in the guise of Women Beware Women. Not only is this my favourite play by my favourite writer, but it’s directed by the wonderful Marianne Elliott with a stellar cast. Expectations, then, were somewhat high. And yet, …
Henry VIII @ Shakespeare’s Globe
Since Dominic Dromgoole took over at Shakespeare’s Globe, the prioritisation of the "house dramatist" over all others has disappointingly extended to the exclusion of plays by his contemporaries from the repertory – a real shame, as this was one of the features that used to make the Globe such an important venue from an academic …
Find, follow, join us
Recent Comments