The Sea Voyage – Dress Rehearsal (British American Drama Academy) @ The Oval House Theatre
December 11, 2015
I was privileged to be invited along to a dress rehearsal this week of one of this year’s British American Drama Academy productions, the rarely-staged The Sea Voyage. This is a brilliant scheme, in which troupes of young American actors work with professional directors and designers to create full productions, staged in the Oval House …
Macbeth @ The Young Vic
December 10, 2015
The idea of a Macbeth co-directed by a director with classical experience (Carrie Cracknell) and a choreographer (Lucy Guerin) is an intriguing one, especially when this team has had prior success with a provocative Medea at the National. Yet the overall effect of the Young Vic’s new Macbeth was something less than the sum of …
The Devil is an Ass (Mercurius) @ The Rose Playhouse, Bankside
November 29, 2015
Jenny Easton’s production of The Devil is an Ass for Mercurius revived one of Jonson’s finest city comedies in a suitably evocative location. Although most of the action took place on the viewing platform in the Rose Playhouse, the play opened with the sight of Lewis Chandler’s Pug in the far distance, pinned against a …
Pericles (Shakespeare’s Globe) @ The Sam Wanamaker Playhouse
Dominic Dromgoole’s tenure as Artistic Director of the Globe is ending, perhaps unsurprisingly, with stagings of four of Shakespeare’s ‘late plays’ as the first full Shakespeare productions in the Sam Wanamaker. Pericles, the first of these, plays to Dromgoole’s strengths: a rousing, varied play with huge shifts in tone, varied environments and a large ensemble …
The Duchess of Malfi @ Nottingham Playhouse
November 4, 2015
This is a repost of a review originally submitted to Exeunt Magazine. To the sound of seagulls and a ship’s horn, assorted servants, ladies, nobles and clergy from a range of time periods start criss-crossing the stage, piling up luggage and making preparations. Fiona Buffini’s new production of Webster’s tragedy for Nottingham Playhouse begins in …
Hamlet (Sonia Friedman Productions/NT Live) @ The Light, Leeds
October 30, 2015
Fortunately, given that I was extremely poorly during last night’s screening, everyone and their doctorate seems to have written about Hamlet already. There are really great pieces out there by Tom Cornford, Holger Schott Syme, Eoin Price, not to mention most of the newspapers at least twice, after the ‘controversy’ (read: storm in a teacup) …
Henry V (RSC/Live from Stratford-upon-Avon) @ The Broadway, Nottingham
October 23, 2015
Gregory Doran’s jaunt through the second tetralogy has come to its climax with this, a Henry V lauded by The Telegraph as ‘the production this country needs’. Following some discussions on Twitter, I remain unconvinced by what exactly this country might ‘need’ from Henry V. Leaders born into privilege who disguise their true purposes and …
Measure for Measure @ The Young Vic
October 14, 2015
One key moment in Measure for Measure exemplified the difference between Dominic Dromgoole’s production at the Globe and this, Joe Hill-Gibbins’s very different take at the Young Vic. In Dromgoole’s production, when Mariah Gale’s Isabella promised to claw out Angelo’s eyes, she simply and quietly removed her cap, revealing for the first time her long …
Measure for Measure @ Shakespeare’s Globe
The Globe has two key advantages in staging Measure for Measure. The first, to which I’ll return, is that everyone is always watching. In a play so concerned with surveillance, overhearing, manipulating events from behind the scene, the absolute exposure of the Globe stage breaks down any illusion of privacy, forcing every character to account …
MUSE OF FIRE (A Shakespeare Odyssey) on DVD
October 6, 2015
MUSE OF FIRE is an unlikely film. Two British actors, Dan Poole and Giles Terera, begin from the premise that Shakespeare is scary, offputting, difficult, and decide to ‘overcome their fears’ by undertaking a road trip taking in London, Stratford, Elsinore, Madrid, Yale and Hollywood ‘to discover everything they can about tackling Shakespeare, recognized by many …
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