Peter Kirwan
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Harry the Sixth (Shakespeare’s Globe) @ York Theatre Royal
July 7, 2013
The Globe’s touring adaptation of the first of the Henry VI plays announced its ambition from the first, with an enormous covered throne standing central on the Theatre Royal stage, flanked by two scaffold towers. The bare, skeletal structures were surrounded by galleries boasting armour, tabards, drums and weapons, evocative of a museum gallery. This …
Titus Andronicus (RSC) @ The Swan Theatre
July 4, 2013
The trailer for the RSC’s new Titus, its first in some years, promised a macabre production: carrion birds, rusty cooking implements and chains. The play’s reputation preloads any new outing with expectation of blood, violence, sex and excess, the characteristic ingredients of contemporary Jacobean productions. In writing my own piece for this production’s programme, I …
Midsummer Night’s Dreaming (RSC/Google+)
June 22, 2013
Saturday 21:42 Over the Midsummer weekend, the RSC is putting on its fortieth production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, with a difference. In the latest of a series of big-money partnerships (following last year’s partnership with BP on the Shipwreck season), the company is putting on the play via Google, Twitter and live performances in …
The Dutch Courtesan (DTFTV) @ The Scenic Stage Theatre, University of York
The big renaissance drama production at the University of York has become something of a calendar event, as picked up on by Pascale Aebischer in her new book, Screening Early Modern Drama, which points out that Michael Cordner’s rotating company of students is one of the very few providing full filmed stage productions of non-Shakespearean …
Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay (Read Not Dead) @ Shakespeare’s Globe, Park Street Rehearsal Room
June 9, 2013
Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay is, arguably, the finest work by the much maligned Robert Greene, a historical romance in the vein of Fair Em and a fine example of the late sixteenth century stable of university conjurer dramas that also produced Doctor Faustus. It no doubt presented Read not Dead first-time director David Oakes …
The Comedy of Errors (Fine Frenzy/New Theatre) @ The New Theatre, Nottingham
June 4, 2013
The privilege of student theatre is the freedom to experiment. Nottingham’s New Theatre, the only completely student-run theatre in the UK (and, coincidentally, the only theatre I can get to within two minutes of leaving my office) has one of the most extensive and wide-ranging programmes of classic and new writing around, and the sheer …
The Taming of the Shrew (Propeller) @ Theatre Royal, Nottingham
June 1, 2013
I first saw Propeller in November 2006, when they contributed their Taming of the Shrew to the RSC’s Complete Works Festival in Stratford, which made this the most delayed return visit to a production I’ve ever had. Almost seven years later and with an almost entirely new cast, Propeller’s provocative and disquieting Shrew had lost …
Twelfth Night (Propeller) @ Theatre Royal, Nottingham
May 30, 2013
Propeller’s new season is their first with no brand new production, the company instead touring revivals of its acclaimed 2006-07 Twelfth Night and The Taming of the Shrew, the tour on which I first encountered them. Looking back over my backlog of reviews, Propeller have consistently been revelatory. Their all-male productions are no heritage gimmick, …
A Year of Shakespeare, eds. Paul Edmondson, Paul Prescott & Erin Sullivan
May 20, 2013
A Year of Shakespeare: Re-living the World Shakespeare Festival is now out at a good Shakespeare-related bookshop near you, and as Shakespeare’s Globe welcomes back some of the standout productions from last year’s World Shakespeare Festival, it seems timely to flag up the volume that offers an overview of all seventy-four productions, events and films …
Provincial Shakespeare Performance – PhD opportunity at Nottingham
May 16, 2013
‘Provincial Shakespeare Performance’ fully funded PhD studentship, University of Nottingham/British Library – closing date 7 June 2013 The University of Nottingham School of English and The British Library AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Partnership, ‘Provincial Shakespeare Performance’ The British Library and the School of English at the University of Nottingham are seeking to award one fully funded …
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