Shakespeare
Owen Richards
Ophelia is one of Shakespeare’s most iconic yet underdeveloped dramatic roles. A sweet and naïve girl, she’s driven mad by Hamlet’s wavering affections and her father’s death. She was often the subject of paintings, yet rarely of novels until the 21st century. Ophelia, starring Daisy Ridley, is an adaptation of Lisa Klein’s 2006 book of the same name, and does a valiant job at not only filling in the blanks but bringing some flair of its own.Ophelia is a precocious child of the Danish court, handpicked by Queen Gertrude (Naomi Watts, pictured below right) to join her ladies-in-waiting. She Read more ...
David Nice
No Joan of Arc means no Henry VI Part One. France, where we left the victorious Henry V - the superb Sarah Amankwah, a shining light of this company - in the Globe's summer history plays, only figures briefly in the last act of a candelelit, intimate stepping-back to the more problematic saga. It's earlier in terms of composition - though it seems strange that people used to reject Shakespeare's authorship - but in terms of historic kingship actually shows how everything about England and its French posessions fell apart with the advent of the introverted Henry VI. Concentrating on the second Read more ...
Sam Marlowe
It’s bright, it’s brash, it’s a gazillion times camper than Christmas: but is it such stuff as theatrical hits are made on? If that misquotation is already making you cringe, then this glittery pop juggernaut probably isn’t for you – but it is, unashamedly, Shakespeare for the generation that grew up on TV talent shows. Created around the back catalogue of Swedish songwriter Max Martin, it’s a reworking of Romeo and Juliet that gives the tragic teenage heroine’s story an irreverent, 21st-century spin.The result is a jukebox musical with the broad humour and feelgood fairytale sentiment of a Read more ...
Katherine Waters
Because he dramatised power, Shakespeare never really goes out of fashion. Treatments of his plays do though, and the RSC’s Measure for Measure, a transfer from Stratford set in turn-of-the-century Vienna, feels distinctly slack. The backdrop is supposedly a city filled with refugees, artists, political movers and shakers and members of the upper-class and demimonde. The arts and psychoanalysis are flourishing and social grey areas abound. But aside from design touches, little of this combustive social mix makes its way into the production. Psychological complexity already abounds and this Read more ...
Owen Richards
Ophelia is one of Shakespeare's most enduring characters in both literature and art, and yet her part in Hamlet is limited to few lines and fewer motivations. Based on Lisa Klein's novel, the new film Ophelia challenges this interpretation. Daisy Ridley stars as the iconic maiden raising above the petty squabbles of flawed men. Director Claire McCarthy talks about bringing this new adaptation to screen.OWEN RICHARDS: How did you first become involved with Ophelia?CLAIRE MCCARTHY: The job came to me off the back of a film I made called The Turning, which has Rose Byrne in it, a wonderful Read more ...
Heather Neill
This is one play by Shakespeare ripe for tinkering. It's well nigh impossible now to take it at face value and still find romance and fun in the bullying: the physical and psychological abuse as a supposedly problematic wife is "tamed" into submission. And there have been experiments. Earlier this year, the Sherman Theatre in Cardiff presented a new play by Jo Clifford based on this source but set in a matriarchal world, and in 2003 Phyllida Lloyd directed a sparky all-female version at the Globe with Janet McTeer as Petruchio caricaturing male crudity to hilarious effect.If something radical Read more ...
Rachel Halliburton
Even the most ardent Bardophile has to admit that most of the time the Fool doesn’t shine in a Shakespeare production. Lamentable wordplay combined with philosophy limper than a dead capon means that with a few honourable exceptions, his interludes feel nasty, a tad brutish, and just not short enough. Yet in this RSC transfer to the Barbican, Sandy Grierson’s coruscatingly witty Touchstone, complete with bald patch, straggly hair, sequin vest, and tight tartan trousers, steals almost every scene in which he appears. In an evening filled with gentle comedy, there is a raw anger to his humour Read more ...
Heather Neill
Reviewing Ian McKellen's show is, in one sense, like appraising the Taj Mahal or Mount Everest: he too is an awe-inspiring phenomenon. In another sense, Sir Ian is not like that at all, going out of his way to be available to the adoring patrons filling the theatre, apparently enjoying every minute of up to three hours from a jokey beginning geared to Gandalf and Widow Twankey to shaking a collecting bucket at the door as the audience leaves. Apparently indefatigable - despite this show marking his 80th birthday - he can even be found chatting to punters in the stalls during the interval. He Read more ...
Tom Birchenough
There’s a fine balance between the cosmic and the closely crafted in director Paul Miller’s Macbeth, his first production in the expansive space that is Chichester’s main stage. It comes across as a drama unravelling in the wide open spaces of nature, with a design approach that feels operatic in style – generous use of projections accentuate the big stage picture, backed up with a complex sound palette – set against playing, John Simm’s Macbeth especially, that feels finely wrought. Simm offers a strikingly intelligent interpretation of the role, more considered than instinctual, a hero who’ Read more ...
Rachel Halliburton
Welcome to A Midsummer Night’s Dream as carnival – a blazing-coloured, hot-rhythmed, kick-ass take in which Oberon appears at one point as a blinged-up Elizabeth I and Puck exerts his powers as a flash-mob. Last month the glitter-ball hedonism of Nicholas Hytner’s gender-fluid Dream, which opened at The Bridge, felt like an impossible act to follow, but this riotous production by Sean Holmes at Shakespeare's Globe shows that the Battle of the Dreams is on.The Latin American vibe that pervades the romantic madness in the woods is given a sinister twist through the decision to introduce Theseus Read more ...
Damian Cruden
How we deliver culture in the modern day is complex. There are many misconceptions about where and who is capable of leading the nation’s cultural charge. The accepted conceit is that if culture doesn’t emanate from certain places, like London or Stratford, then it couldn’t possibly be of value. By way of response, Shakespeare’s Rose Theatre brings affordable, high-quality culture to audiences outside the M25. It promises an immersive experience, accessible to all and undeniably great fun. The artists creating the work have all had a wide range of experience gained in the major arts Read more ...
Bernard Hughes
The festival Summer Music in City Churches is in only its second year, filling a gap left by the demise of the long-running City of London Festival. This year’s festival had the theme of Words and Music and offered an enticing programme of recitals, talks and walks, focusing on English music through the ages, and finding enterprising ways of combining solo performers with resident ensembles the London Mozart Players and the City of London Choir. The closing concert showcased works inspired by Shakespeare plays, presenting them alongside Shakespeare’s words, spoken by actor Tama Matheson.The Read more ...