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The Tempest (Gloucestershire Youth Players) @ The Tobacco Factory, Bristol

Gloucestershire Youth Players has been touring productions of Shakespeare for nine years, and its 2014 production of The Tempest marks the first time the ensemble has used a professional theatre, concluding its tour (which also took in the Dell in Stratford-upon-Avon) with two performances in Bristol’s Tobacco Factory. It’s a pleasure to see a youth …

The Two Gentlemen of Verona (SATTF) @ The Tobacco Factory

The Two Gentlemen of Verona is the first Shakespearean comedy tackled at the Tobacco Factory’s annual season since a sophisticated, gentle Comedy of Errors two years ago. Director Andrew Hilton, approaching another early comedy, took a remarkably similar approach: Edwardians in Western Europe, influence from comedy of manners and a literate, polite approach to the …

Richard III (SATTF) @ The Tobacco Factory, Bristol

I’m on record (well, Twitter) as being relatively sceptical about the recent finds in Leicester. The convenience of the archaeological team setting out to find Richard and discovering the trench and skeleton more or less on the first day of digging strikes me as being rather convenient, and I’m inclined to exercise a healthy caution. …

King Lear (Shakespeare at the Tobacco Factory) @ The Tobacco Factory, Bristol

Writing about web page http://sattf.org.uk/currentfutureproductions/kinglear2012.html With only one Shakespeare play in this year’s Tobacco Factory season (the company are putting on The Cherry Orchard in place of a second), SATTF director Andrew Hilton has chosen to go back to the play that launched the company twelve years ago. Continuing the work of last year’s similarly …

The Comedy of Errors (Shakespeare at the Tobacco Factory) @ The Tobacco Factory

Writing about web page http://sattf.org.uk/index.php?id=165 The Comedy of Errors is one of those few plays that fail to disappoint onstage. It’s inherently funny, fast, short and complex, and it’s hard to remove the basic entertainment value from it. However, the slew of Comedies I’ve seen over the last few years have shared what is, perhaps, …

Richard II (SAATF) @ The Tobacco Factory

Even though Richard II stands alone as a wonderful, lyrical play, there’s something about a good production that leaves you wanting more, in the form of Henry IV. Certainly the play seems to aim at that. Some of the most exciting moments in Andrew Hilton’s new production, opening this year’s season at the Tobacco Factory, …

Antony & Cleopatra (SATTF) @ The Tobacco Factory

Shakespeare at the Tobacco Factory have followed a similar format for most of their ten seasons to date, putting on two classic plays a year, one after the other. This tenth anniversary season, though, marks the first time that they have tried to link their two productions into a cohesive whole, with the same ensemble …

Julius Caesar (SATTF) @ The Tobacco Factory

Writing about web page http://www.sattf.org.uk/ A bizarre clash of three Shakespearean press nights will hopefully not have left the new Shakespeare at the Tobacco Factory production of Julius Caesar out in the cold. While the RSC’s Tempest and Northern Broadsides’ Othello drew the bulk of media interest, I took the road less travelled to Bristol …

Hamlet (SATTF) @ The Tobacco Factory

With only a short night’s sleep, and barely recovered from Black Watch, it was an early start for the Bristol train to catch Jonathan Miller’s new production of Hamlet for the Tobacco Factory. I should thank Carol Rutter here for managing to secure me a couple of tickets to a production that has sold out …