As You Like It (RSC) @ Theatre Royal, Nottingham
February 29, 2020
The Bardathon made his RSC stage debut last night, in the small but pivotal role of ‘Tree Covered In Post-It Notes’. Brought on after the interval of As You Like It, this hapless audience member’s role was to stand in a coat festooned with hundreds of stick-on lines of poetry, and chip in with the …
Romeo and Juliet (RSC) @ Nottingham Theatre Royal
February 21, 2019
An entirely unexpected fight broke out at the RSC’s Romeo and Juliet last night, and it wasn’t on stage. As several audience members took action to remonstrate with and ultimately eject someone who was expressing their disapproval for the production’s choices, many other audience members found themselves missing the meeting of the lovers. And when …
Macbeth (National Theatre) @ Nottingham Theatre Royal
January 23, 2019
I didn’t hate the National Theatre’s Macbeth when I saw it last April, but I was underwhelmed. The production has since closed in London, been re-cast, and is now touring the country, opening last night at Nottingham’s Theatre Royal. While the production has an entirely new cast, it remained very close to the London version, …
A Midsummer Night’s Dream: A Play for the Nation (RSC/Lovelace Theatre) @ Theatre Royal, Nottingham
May 7, 2016
The RSC’s much-heralded return to regional touring was already a phenomenon before it opened. Erica Whyman’s audacious experiment is touring a full RSC production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream to cities across the UK, with a different amateur theatre company joining them at each venue to play the Mechanicals and a fairy train for Titania …
Twelfth Night (Propeller) @ Theatre Royal, Nottingham
May 30, 2013
Propeller’s new season is their first with no brand new production, the company instead touring revivals of its acclaimed 2006-07 Twelfth Night and The Taming of the Shrew, the tour on which I first encountered them. Looking back over my backlog of reviews, Propeller have consistently been revelatory. Their all-male productions are no heritage gimmick, …
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 …
The Taming of the Shrew (RSC) @ Nottingham Theatre Royal
March 14, 2012
Writing about web page http://www.rsc.org.uk/whats-on/the-taming-of-the-shrew/ The Taming of the Shrew carries a great deal of baggage with it. The gender politics that are inevitably foregrounded in production (is this inevitable? Are there other issues that are being obscured?) are read through the identity of the director, through our own filters of acceptable behaviour, and through …
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