King Lear (Yellow Earth) @ The Cube
November 17, 2006
The final production of the month-long Cube season was the first of this year’s two ‘King Lear’s. Hi-tec and set in the near future (2020), this production translated Lear’s kingdom to the global business world, with Lear as a Shanghai CEO passing on the reins of the company to his three daughters. A collaboration between …
The Taming Of The Shrew (Propeller) @ The Courtyard Theatre
November 9, 2006
Yet another transport problem last night, as the line between Hatton and Stratford caused our train to be delayed by over half an hour. Thankfully we still managed to get in for the first line of the play, so didn’t miss anything apart from milling around in the foyer for a while! Propeller, tonight’s visiting …
The Phoenix And The Turtle (RSC) @ The Courtyard Theatre and Holy Trinity Church
November 6, 2006
The holy grail of the Complete Works, and one that cost me a great deal of time and money in order to get a ticket for! But thoroughly worth it, despite me not knowing the poem at all. The evening began in the Courtyard, with a talk from Michael Wood about the poem. Without going …
Twelfth Night (Filter) @ The Cube
November 3, 2006
While there have been a couple of work-in-progress events by the RSC so far (‘The Rape Of Lucrece’ and ‘The Two Noble Kinsmen’), tonight’s performance of ‘Twelfth Night’ was the first visiting company to be presenting their work in an unfinished format. This was directed by Sean Holmes, but as far from his flat ‘Julius …
Hamlet (Tiny Ninja Theater) @ The Cube
November 1, 2006
Last night was the event (as regular readers will know) that I’ve been waiting for for six months- ‘Hamlet’ performed by the Tiny Ninja Theater of New York. A 55 minute distillation of the play (interestingly, based primarily on the first ‘bad’ quarto of the text) performed by one man with an army of inch …
Timon Of Athens (Cardboard Citizens) @ The Shakespeare Centre
October 25, 2006
Coming up the stairs of the Shakespeare Centre, we were all given a badge and asked to fill in our name, job title and salary bracket. Then, escorted into a room decorated for a corporate training event, we were fed gold chocolate bars, made comfortable and treated to a series of motivational speeches and powerpoint …
Antony and Cleopatra (RSC) @ The Swan Theatre
October 15, 2006
Last night’s play was the wonderful, universally lauded ‘Antony and Cleopatra’ starring Patrick Stewart and Harriet Walter, which I reviewed way back when I first started this blog. Then, though, I was standing in the top gallery of the Swan. Tonight, I was on the front row, at times mere inches from the actors. And …
Cymbeline (Kneehigh) @ The Swan Theatre
September 21, 2006
Without beating around the bush, this production was simply breathtaking, one of the most complete pieces of theatre I’ve seen in a long time, and the perfect antidote to the sober and dull ‘Measure For Measure’ of last week. I’ve seen a lot of Kneehigh Theatre’s work in the past, but this was without the …
Practising Theatre with John Barton @ The Swan Theatre
September 16, 2006
This morning’s special event was a two hour workshop with advisory director John Barton and about 15 members of the current RSC ensemble. A packed out ground floor of the Swan Theatre watched the co-founder of the Royal Shakespeare Company take the actors through two speeches from ‘Henry V’- the Chorus at the start of …
Measure For Measure (Theatre Royal Bath/Peter Hall Company) @ The Courtyard Theatre
September 14, 2006
This show marked the first appearance of the Peter Hall Company at the RSC– Peter Hall being the artistic director who founded the modern RSC back in the day. There was therefore a lot of prestige and expectation behind this production, the first major non-RSC event to be staged at the Courtyard Theatre. It looked …
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