The Two Gentlemen of Verona (SATTF) @ The Tobacco Factory
April 28, 2013
The Two Gentlemen of Verona is the first Shakespearean comedy tackled at the Tobacco Factory’s annual season since a sophisticated, gentle Comedy of Errors two years ago. Director Andrew Hilton, approaching another early comedy, took a remarkably similar approach: Edwardians in Western Europe, influence from comedy of manners and a literate, polite approach to the …
Caesar Must Die (dir. Paolo Taviani & Vittorio Taviani)
April 21, 2013
Italy’s official nomination for the 2013 Best Foreign Language Oscar is an extremely odd beast. Ostensibly a fly-on-the-wall documentary following a group of Italian prisoners putting on a production of Julius Caesar, the film is framed by the climax of the real production, as Salvatore Striano’s Brutus seeks a willing hand on whose sword to …
Much Ado About Nothing (dir. Joss Whedon) @ Shakespeare Association of America conference, Toronto
March 30, 2013
Joss Whedon introduced a special advance preview screening of his new movie of Much Ado about Nothing last night (alas, via pre-recorded video) with a tribute to the teachers and professors who had instilled him with a love of Shakespeare. In allowing the Shakespeare Association of America annual conference in Toronto to get an early …
The Winter’s Tale (RSC) @ The Theatre Royal, Nottingham
March 29, 2013
In my pre-show lecture for this production of The Winter’s Tale, I talked about the notion that this is a play of two halves, reflected through the distorting mirror of the bear, which asks us to consider ideas of rebirth and circles (though the question of whether these are redemptive or vicious remains open). Lucy …
Richard III (SATTF) @ The Tobacco Factory, Bristol
March 24, 2013
I’m on record (well, Twitter) as being relatively sceptical about the recent finds in Leicester. The convenience of the archaeological team setting out to find Richard and discovering the trench and skeleton more or less on the first day of digging strikes me as being rather convenient, and I’m inclined to exercise a healthy caution. …
Henry V (Edward’s Boys) @ The Swan, Stratford-upon-Avon
March 18, 2013
When I first saw Edward’s Boys, they were a group of mostly eleven year olds performing extracts of John Lyly’s Endymion in a campus drama studio. Last night, the same company (indeed, with many of the same actors) filled the Swan Theatre to bursting with an audience including knights of the realm, RSC actors and …
A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Custom/Practice) @ Nottingham Playhouse
March 1, 2013
Rae McKen’s new production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream opened with a framing device that left no doubt as to the production’s intended audience. Set in a modern detention room, a group of assorted school stereotypes assembled, bickering over mobile phones and classroom politics. After a short while, their velvet-jacketed teacher ‘Mr Goodfellow’ entered the …
The Knight of the Burning Pestle (Read not Dead) @ Sackler Studios, Shakespeare’s Globe
February 20, 2013
‘Post-modern before the term was even invented’. So runs the blurb on Shakespeare’s Globe’s ‘Read not Dead‘ webpage, and it’s a fitting description of Francis Beaumont’s The Knight of the Burning Pestle. A failure when first performed, and an often difficult play in modern revival, the Read not Dead team here excelled themselves with an …
Fair Em (Steam Industry) @ The Union Theatre
February 5, 2013
Long-time readers will know that my scholarly research is based primarily on the group of anonymous or misattributed plays best known collectively as ‘The Shakespeare Apocrypha’, of which Fair Em is perhaps the most obscure, to scholars as well as theatregoers. Seemingly one never to shy away from a challenge, director Phil Willmott continued his run of …
Candlemas Revels at Middle Temple Hall
February 4, 2013
As part of a quite wonderful conference this weekend, I went to Candlemas Revels at Middle Temple Hall on Saturday night. The preceding two-day conference, convened by Jackie Watson and Darren Royston, focused on the Elizabethan and Jacobean context of the Inns of Court in relation to the legal and social culture of early modern …
Find, follow, join us
Recent Comments