A Yorkshire Tragedy (Tough Theatre) @ The White Bear Theatre
January 11, 2010
Writing about web page http://www.whitebeartheatre.co.uk/productions/ As regular readers will know, I’m currently writing a PhD thesis on the Shakespeare Apocrypha, and it’s therefore extremely exciting to be starting the year with a very rare performance of one of the apocryphal plays, A Yorkshire Tragedy. The venue was the White Bear Theatre pub in London, a tiny …
Compulsion @ ITV1
May 5, 2009
Writing about web page http://www.itv.com/PressCentre/Presspacks/Compulsion/default.html This one almost slipped under the wire. Last night, ITV premiered a new one-off drama called Compulsion, heavily based on Middleton and Rowley’s The Changeling and starring Ray Winstone and Parminder Nagra. The actual "Changeling" subplot is completely removed in order to focus on the main relationship between Anjika (Nagra, …
Macbeth @ The Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester
March 12, 2009
Matthew Dunster’s new production of Macbeth for the Royal Exchange fits neatly into recent fashions regarding the staging of this play. It emphasises the Weird Sisters, bringing them onstage throughout the action, contemporises events and has a particular concern with children, some or all of which were exemplified by the most recent RSC and Chichester …
A Mad World, My Masters (King Edward VI School) @ The CAPITAL Centre
A Mad World, My Masters, the second production from King Edward VI School this year is a very different affair to Endymion. For a start, it’s a relatively full text, compared to the extracts that made up the earlier play. For another, it’s the turn of the older boys, who I’d guess are about 16-18 …
Macbeth: Who Is That Bloodied Man? (Teatr Biuro Podrozy) @ The Square2, National Theatre
August 11, 2008
For two productions only, the National Theatre has opened a new space, the Square2, just outside the main theatre on the South Bank. It’s an odd space, a large flat open area with audience standing around on three sides on stepped platforms behind crash barriers on raked platforms. Only a low wall separates it from …
Macbeth (WUDS) @ Warwick Arts Centre
June 22, 2008
Warwick University Drama Society’s new studio production of Macbeth was an ambitious endeavour, both technically and conceptually. The stage was dominated by a huge static-filled screen at the rear, while the space itself was filled with black flats and five hanging banners with the names of Macbeth, Banquo, Macduff, Duncan and Malcolm running from ceiling …
The Revenger’s Tragedy @ Manchester Royal Exchange
June 12, 2008
There are advantages and disadvantages to seeing two productions of the same play in close proximity to each other. The main advantage, to my mind, is the opportunity to see multiple interpretations of the same text and thereby learn more about the actual text itself, to see through the reading of an individual director to the …
The Revenger’s Tragedy @ The National Theatre
June 4, 2008
The 2008 Middleton Renaissance is underway with two new productions of The Revenger’s Tragedy opening simultaneously at opposite ends of the country. The professional critics saw the Manchester production first, but I’m working the other way round, last night catching the National’s new interpretation. The National went to great lengths to emphasise and jazz up Middleton’s …
Macbeth (Chichester Festival) @ The Gielgud Theatre
October 8, 2007
Have you ever left the room during a cup final to hear the roars behind you telling you you’ve just missed the crucial goal? Or left a gig early only to be told about the secret encore afterwards? Or gone to see your favourite actor in a play only to find out the understudy’s had …
Macbeth (RSC) @ The Swan Theatre
April 17, 2007
‘Macbeth’ is a play that has been done time and time again. Most importantly, it’s been done well. Trevor Nunn’s production starring Ian McKellen and Judi Dench is often held up as the greatest filmed Shakespeare, and films by Roman Polanski and Orson Welles have also had major impacts. Even the BBC version was uncommonly …
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