The Dutch Courtesan (DTFTV) @ The Scenic Stage Theatre, University of York
June 22, 2013
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 …
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, …
The Tempest @ Shakespeare’s Globe
May 13, 2013
My first visit to Shakespeare’s Globe was a school trip in 2000 to see Vanessa Redgrave’s Prospero in a production that is still notable among Tempests I’ve seen for many reasons, not least an ethereal, androgynous Ariel and a complete, spectacular masque with goddesses appearing on high. Jeremy Herrin’s new production was the first I …
As You Like It (RSC) @ The Royal Shakespeare Theatre
May 5, 2013
Playing in repertory with Hamlet, Maria Aberg’s new production of As You Like It shared more than just a company that reunited the leading players from her spectacular King John last year. The same foundational level of muddy soil that was exposed throughout Hamlet to finish that play in an upturned graveyard emerged again here, but as the end result of the gradual unpacking …
A Yorkshire Tragedy (Shakespeare Institute Players) @ The Shakespeare Institute, Stratford-upon-Avon
May 4, 2013
Sixty years ago the postgraduate students of the Shakespeare Institute of Stratford-upon-Avon launched its new dramatic society with a production of the apocryphal A Yorkshire Tragedy, attributed on its first publication to Shakespeare. Sixty years later, and with the play now confidently attributed to Thomas Middleton, the Players celebrated their anniversary with a fresh imagining …
Hamlet (RSC) @ The Royal Shakespeare Theatre
Creating smallness on the stage of the Royal Shakespeare Theatre is no easy feat, but David Farr’s new production of Hamlet shrunk Stratford’s flagship theatre down to an almost nostalgic depiction of a community hall. School benches and gym bars flanked the thrust stage; fencing foils lined the walls, and a small proscenium stage marked the upstage focus. …
Gorboduc (Shakespeare’s Globe Read Not Dead) @ The Parliament Room, Inner Temple
April 28, 2013
Thomas Norton and Thomas Sackville’s Gorboduc is often spoken of as the template for English tragedy. The first play to be written in blank verse and the first to employ dumb shows with its Chorus, the 1561 play establishes many of the conventions that would characterise revenge tragedy especially during the early years of the …
The Two Gentlemen of Verona (SATTF) @ The Tobacco Factory
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 …
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