The Revenger’s Tragedy (Cheek by Jowl/Piccolo) @ The Barbican Theatre
March 6, 2020
In producing a play that turns repeatedly on deceitful appearances, both in the spectacles of power and in staged tricks played on the unsuspecting, Cheek by Jowl’s Revenger’s Tragedy turned theatre itself into the grand metaphor. At the production’s opening, with a stage manager in a headset watching, Fausto Cabra’s Vindice clicked his fingers to …
The Knight of the Burning Pestle (Cheek by Jowl) @ The Barbican Theatre
June 9, 2019
The Knight of the Burning Pestle opened exactly as one might imagine a Cheek by Jowl production to open. To eerie music, a group of stone-faced actors emerged from behind a central white block on a bare stage, each bringing a chair with them. The chairs were arranged in deliberately unpatterned positions around the stage, …
The Winter’s Tale (Cheek by Jowl) @ The Barbican: A Year On
April 24, 2017
Regular readers will know that I’m writing a book on Cheek by Jowl, a labour of love that will hopefully be out in 2018. It’s been fifteen months since I went out to Paris to watch the first two performances of The Winter’s Tale after being afforded the extraordinary privilege of spending a few days …
Second view: Roman Tragedies (Toneelgroep Amsterdam) @ The Barbican
March 20, 2017
I last saw Roman Tragedies eight years ago, when I was a teeny and energetic PhD student for whom theatrical marathons were par for the course. The production was, at the time, one of the biggest influences on my understanding of theatre; it remains on my mental list of my top five Shakespeare productions, and …
Kings of War (Toneelgroep Amsterdam) @ The Barbican Theatre
May 1, 2016
In 2009 I was lucky enough to see Toneelgroep Amsterdam perform Ivo van Hove’s Roman Tragedies at the Barbican. That mammoth reworking of Coriolanus, Julius Caesar and Antony and Cleopatra remains one of my lifetime theatrical highlights – not just for its length and ambition, but for its cohesive use of space, its innovative flexibility …
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) …
Measure for Measure (Cheek by Jowl) @ The Barbican – live stream
April 22, 2015
I have already written two reviews of Cheek by Jowl’s Measure for Measure (here and here), but tonight I had an opportunity to see it again, this time in the company’s first ever live broadcast. Firstly, it’s an extraordinary offering. A prestigious production being broadcast internationally for free online is a bold statement, and canny. …
Measure for Measure (Cheek by Jowl) @ The Silk Street Theatre, Barbican
April 17, 2015
These notes supplement my review of the production in Moscow, here. The production I travelled to Moscow to see performed before a native speaking audience has made it at last to the UK, with a new Duke, an updated design and English-language (Shakespearean) surtitles. Although Cheek by Jowl defines itself as a multinational company, performances …
Macbeth (Song of the Goat Theatre/ Teatr Piesn Kozla) @ The Barbican Pit
November 19, 2010
Writing about web page http://macbeth-thepoint.co.uk/ Last night’s production was informed, for this reviewer, by mimetic associations and intertextuality that bordered, at times, on déjà vu. It was the second Polish take on Macbeth I’ve seen in the last couple of years. It was also the second Macbeth I’ve seen this year at the Barbican, both …
Macbeth (Cheek by Jowl) @ Silk Street Theatre, The Barbican
April 2, 2010
Writing about web page http://www.cheekbyjowl.com/productions/macbeth/index.html I loved Cheek by Jowl’s new production of Macbeth, and yet, as I left it, I couldn’t help but feel a little disappointed, for I was beginning to wonder whether the company may have lost their ability to change my world. If you’ve seen any of the company’s previous productions, …
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