Peter Kirwan
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Timon of Athens (National Theatre/NT Live) @ The Broadway Cinema, Nottingham
November 2, 2012
As has been the case for certain previous NT Live productions, tonight’s broadcast of Timon of Athens marked the end of a lengthy and critically acclaimed run for a major National Theatre production. The use of the live broadcast format as valediction as well as product extension was explicitly referred to by the ever-present Emma …
A Tender Thing (RSC) @ The Swan Theatre, Stratford
October 14, 2012
Unlike the Olympics, the World Shakespeare Festival doesn’t have a Closing Ceremony. There is no grand climax, no image of Prospero/Shakespeare drowning his books and asking for our applause, not even a celebrity-studded event production. Instead, the last officially badged World Shakespeare Festival production to open was this: a two-hander played (on this occasion) to …
Twelfth Night @ Shakespeare’s Globe
September 30, 2012
The Globe’s double-bill of Original Practices productions links Twelfth Night with the much longer run of Richard III reviewed in my last post. Again, the backboards of the tiring house were lifted to reveal the actors dressing; again the female characters were men in white make-up; again onlookers sat in the galleries and the band played original instruments. …
Richard III @ Shakespeare’s Globe
It’s been a busy year for Richard III. Not only have the RSC and now the Globe exhumed him live onstage, but what may be his actual remains have been unearthed in a Leicester car park. With the Tobacco Factory and Nottingham Playhouse due to stage Shakespeare’s play in 2013, the play has entered a …
Redcrosse: England and St George @ Coventry Cathedral
September 26, 2012
As part of my ongoing interest in contemporary appropriations and reworkings of early modern literature, Redcrosse is an event which deserves attention (although, sadly, I won’t be able to attend this performance). Here’s the blurb: On the evening of Saturday the 17th of November the RSC will be performing Redcrosse, the new poetic liturgy for …
The Taming of the Shrew @ Shakespeare’s Globe
September 22, 2012
Standing in the pit of the Globe on Thursday night, a disturbance broke out behind me. A steward remonstrated with a lager-swilling England fan, with tattoos on his cheeks and unkempt beard. Tourists moved to protect their belongings and their friends as the noisy man refused to leave the auditorium, then pushed through the crowd …
Shakespeare: Staging the World @ The British Museum
One of the most high-profile projects in which I’ve had a minor involvement this year has been the BP-sponsored exhibition Shakespeare: Staging the World at the British Museum, curated by Dora Thornton and my PhD supervisor, Jonathan Bate. While my own involvement extended merely to checking the quotations used in the exhibition catalogue, it gave …
Macbeth (Sheffield Theatres) @ The Crucible
September 15, 2012
Daniel Evans has been bringing tragedies annually to the Crucible in Sheffield, with a Hamlet in 2010 and last year’s Othello. That production was solid if flawed, traditionally staged but elevated by certain strong performances. It’s an assessment that might be directly transferred to Evans’s 2012 offering, Macbeth. Staged fully in the round and with …
King John (RSC) @ The Swan Theatre
September 14, 2012
The RSC’s King John is now into its final week, and remains one of the best productions the RSC has produced in quite some time. I reviewed it in full back in July, but the production has continued to go from strength to strength. What remains remarkable about the production is its visceral intensity, turning …
2008: Macbeth (TR Warszawa) @ Guardian Online
August 13, 2012
By a bizarre quirk of international programming, this is the fourth Polish production of Macbeth I’ve seen. The most recent, by Teatr Piesn Kozla, remains one of the finest Shakespeare productions I’ve ever seen, while Teatro Buiro Podrozy’s Macbeth: Who is that Bloodied Man? created a wild and hugely experimental aesthetic featuring stilts and a …
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