Henry IV Part 2 (RSC Live from Stratford-upon-Avon) @ The Broadway, Nottingham
June 19, 2014
There were over a hundred spare seats at the Broadway last night for the RSC’s live streaming of Henry IV Part 2. After years of being used to sold-out screenings of NT Live broadcasts, I can but speculate over the reasons for this.No doubt the time of year, the lack of a major film or …
Now: In The Wings on a World Stage @ The Broadway, Nottingham
June 9, 2014
Almost twenty years after Al Pacino had the odd idea of making a documentary about rehearsing a production of Richard III that never actually happened, and releasing Looking for Richard in cinemas, comes the second film about the processes and personalities behind a version of the play. Now follows an actual production, the Bridge Project’s …
I, Malvolio (Tim Crouch) @ Curve
May 24, 2014
I, Malvolio is one of the bravest shows I have seen in some time. How many pieces of theatre invite two young children to come on stage to hold a rope and kick out a chair while the title character prepares to hang himself? Although it carried an age warning of 11+, Tim Crouch’s one-man …
King Lear (National Theatre/NT Live) @ The Broadway, Nottingham
May 2, 2014
This is the second time NT Live has broadcast a version of King Lear. The first, back in 2011, was the Donmar’s extraordinary pared-down version starring Derek Jacobi, drawing its power from the intimate, bare set and performances that utilised whispers to wonderful effect. By contrast, Sam Mendes’ new production for the Olivier was an …
Twelfth Night @ Liverpool Everyman
April 6, 2014
There was an awful moment in the closing night of the new Liverpool Everyman’s inaugural production of Twelfth Night, as Malvolio’s yellow stockings emerged, feet uppermost, through a trapdoor for an inverted prison sequence. The mechanism lifting the actor was misdirected, meaning that his feet pushed at the stage, which cracked and splintered before the …
Pericles (Ketterer’s Men) @ The Shakespeare Institute
February 23, 2014
For those of us who knew Lizz Ketterer, even partly or briefly, she remains a very present absence three years after her passing. The Trust set up in her memory raises funds to allow one promising young early modernist each year the opportunity to attend the RSC’s summer school; the bench in the garden of …
Coriolanus (Donmar/NT Live) @ The Broadway, Nottingham
January 31, 2014
The Hiddleston effect is a very tangible thing. As the stalwart Emma Freud reminded international audiences in what was, frankly, the most banal interval interview NT Live has yet managed (which is saying something), Tom Hiddleston was recently voted Sexiest Man Alive by MTV, and his Coriolanus attracted the youngest audience I’ve yet seen to …
A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Propeller) @ Sheffield Lyceum
January 30, 2014
The Bardathon has had a slow start this year, as writing and marking priorities haven’t given me a huge amount of time for theatre. New reviews will be further delayed as my first show of the year, Propeller’s wonderful A Midsummer Night’s Dream, was seen as part of a module trip. As many of my …
An Age of Kings (BBC/Illuminations)
December 27, 2013
In 1960, the BBC undertook an extraordinary project. Shakespeare’s eight history plays covering the reigns of Richard II, Henry IV, Henry V, Henry VI, Edward IV, Edward V and Richard III were broadcast in fifteen hour-long episodes with a single ensemble company. Rehearsed quickly and recorded live, the films have been unavailable commercially until now, …
Henry V (Michael Grandage Company) @ The Noel Coward Theatre
December 17, 2013
Following the underwhelming and frustratingly conservative Midsummer Night’s Dream, I didn’t have high hopes for the second Shakespeare in Michael Grandage’s West End season. With promotion once again based entirely around a celebrity actor (Jude Law, returning to the director-actor partnership of Hamlet), a theatre and audience unsuited to the interventionist or radical political readings …
Find, follow, join us
