A Mad World, My Masters (RSC) @ The Swan Theatre
August 8, 2013
Unusually for the RSC, the poster to Sean Foley’s new production of A Mad World, My Masters (the second I’ve seen, the first professional) advertises itself prominently as ‘edited by Sean Foley and Phil Porter). This is a frustrating statement to read, partly as it implies on some level that the RSC’s other productions aren’t …
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 …
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 …
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 …
Hamlet (RSC) @ The Royal Shakespeare Theatre
May 4, 2013
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. …
The Winter’s Tale (RSC) @ The Theatre Royal, Nottingham
March 29, 2013
In my pre-show lecture for this production of The Winter’s Tale, I talked about the notion that this is a play of two halves, reflected through the distorting mirror of the bear, which asks us to consider ideas of rebirth and circles (though the question of whether these are redemptive or vicious remains open). Lucy …
Henry V (Edward’s Boys) @ The Swan, Stratford-upon-Avon
March 18, 2013
When I first saw Edward’s Boys, they were a group of mostly eleven year olds performing extracts of John Lyly’s Endymion in a campus drama studio. Last night, the same company (indeed, with many of the same actors) filled the Swan Theatre to bursting with an audience including knights of the realm, RSC actors and …
Julius Caesar (RSC) on DVD
January 27, 2013
The acclaimed Julius Caesar directed by Gregory Doran for the RSC has already been discussed on this blog, but now, happily, the production has been released on DVD. Julius Caesar represents the exciting next phase in the RSC’s work with Illuminations, the production company that has already brought Greg’s Macbeth and Hamlet to DVD. For this …
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 …
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