Shakespeare
philip radcliffe
Instead of that small well-worn stone balcony in that courtyard in Verona, picture an extended well-worn cast-iron balcony in the Victoria Baths in Manchester. The young lovers have ample room to move in the labyrinthine interior of the old building, with its three disused tiled swimming pools and ecclesiastical stained glass windows. Romeo is the length of a cricket pitch away as he addresses Juliet on the balcony and, for some reason, is moved to do a take on “Love Me Do”.The old changing cubicles are still there, crumbling away, but providing hidey-holes for the warring gangs of Montagues Read more ...
Veronica Lee
One of the oddities about theatre is that there can be a gripping performance at the heart of an underwhelming production – and so is the case with Maxine Peake’s Hamlet, directed by Sarah Frankcom. This was a much anticipated production – Peake going home, as it were. She started acting at the Royal Exchange Youth Group and is now an associate artist at the theatre, and has recently been seen giving a towering performance in The Village on BBC One. Frankcom’s production, meanwhile, is described in the press release as a “radical reimagining” of the play.Peake’s interpretation has much to Read more ...
Marianka Swain
It begins sombrely, with the grave recounting of a shipwreck, but such emotive moments are fleeting: as the drama ratchets up, it only serves to fuel the splendid zaniness of Shakespeare's 1594 farce. Granted, it's not his most nuanced comedy – the wordplay is relatively unsophisticated, and there’s a greater reliance on confusion, pratfalls and repetition – yet in Blanche McIntyre’s spirited production, it is, indisputably, an awful lot of fun.The convoluted plot involves not one, but two sets of separated twins, a baffled spouse, an aggrieved merchant, and a father facing execution. The Read more ...
Hanna Weibye
One of the reasons I always tell ballet sceptics to give Romeo and Juliet a go is that any production with halfway decent lovers and a vaguely competent rendition of Prokofiev’s score should convince them that this art form isn’t just about swans and sugar plums. The venerable Mariinsky Theatre Ballet of St Petersburg ought, of course, to have dancers and musicians much better than decent, and in its revival of the original 1940 Leonid Lavrovsky version it has a production of great historical weight, yet the St Petersburg visitors were met with only lukewarm appreciation the last time they Read more ...
alexandra.coghlan
“Comedy, and a bit with a dog.” That’s what audiences really want according to the hapless would-be impresario Mr Henslowe, and that’s certainly what they get in Lee Hall’s new stage adaptation of John Madden’s 1998 film Shakespeare in Love – several bits with a dog, in fact.There was a time when film-makers had it all their own way, pilfering freely from literature in a process which was entirely one-way. But trends have turned, and now you’re more likely to see the show-of-the-film than the film-of-the-book. Currently in the West End you can watch Dirty Dancing, The Commitments and The Read more ...
Demetrios Matheou
Imagine Dr Watson trying his hand at Moriarty? That’s not the challenge of this Richard III, but the exciting prospect instead is to see an actor usually called upon to be the sidekick and nice guy asked to come front and centre as a diabolical villain.I still don’t doubt that Martin Freeman has the chops for such a transition. That said, he doesn’t quite pull it off. The irony is that while he has brought a new dimension to his small-screen Watson, as a casualty of war fuelled by a certain self-loathing, he doesn’t offer a similar psychological depth to a character who demands it.Freeman’s Read more ...
Marianka Swain
For those who believe spin is if not a modern invention, then at least a modern fascination, Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar offers a sharp rejoinder. Interpretation, manipulation and persuasion pervade this incisive drama about the assassination of the Roman ruler, with the company donning layers of pretence as actors playing politicians whose lives unspool upon a stage; those who do not choose their lines with care are doomed to failure. Dominic Dromgoole’s traditional production, with Elizabethan dress and straightforward staging, is a tad unadventurous, but by eschewing gimmicks, it places Read more ...
Hanna Weibye
What a difference a change of cast can make to a show. On Wednesday night I saw Tamara Rojo and Carlos Acosta as the titular lovers in English National Ballet’s Romeo and Juliet at the Royal Albert Hall (see below for that review). Last night it was the turn of ENB’s other Royal Ballet emigrée, Alina Cojocaru, and guest star Friedemann Vogel of Stuttgart Ballet.Rojo and Acosta impressed me with their star power, and the intensity of their partnership, but left me feeling curiously un-tragic. Cojocaru and Vogel, on the other hand, had me spellbound like it was the first time I’d ever seen the Read more ...
Hanna Weibye
The Dream has at its heart a great partnership. Not just the original, magical pairing of Anthony Dowell and Antoinette Sibley, for whom Frederick Ashton created the ballet fifty years ago (thereby launching one of the top couples in ballet history), but the partnership of Titania and Oberon themselves. Regal, fickle, fast, flighty, and dangerous, these two are equals as lovers and as rulers: it is their quarrel that starts the story and their smouldering reunion that brings it to a happy conclusion.So you need two good principals for a really perfect Dream – ideally with more than a hint of Read more ...
Sarah Wilkinson
Watching The Royal Ballet’s The Winter’s Tale a few weeks ago, I was struck by the quasi-absurdity of adapting the Bard for dance - a thought numerous choreographers must have encountered while toying with the idea. The complexity of Shakespeare’s plots and characters, and the importance of his linguistic intricacy has meant that relatively few have dared to take on the task and even fewer have succeeded in creating lasting adaptations. Winter’s Tale premiered to predominantly glowing reviews and Ashton’s one-act The Dream will be revisited at the end of the month with The Royal Ballet, but Read more ...
Hanna Weibye
If, standing on a station platform, your arms want to make shapes in the air; if, walking home, you are mesmerised by the curved toes of your shoes against the pavement; if, in the kitchen, a stray salad leaf on the floor transforms before your eyes into a tiny green lizard, head up, questioning – then (if you are over the age of 10 and reasonably level-headed) you have probably consumed some mind-altering substance.In my case, last Saturday night, it was (honest, m’lud!) nothing more dangerous than a cocktail of contemporary dance + Shakespeare, served up cool and cloudy by Canadian Read more ...
alexandra.coghlan
Lucy Bailey’s Titus Andronicus doesn’t pull any punches (or stabbings, smotherings and throat-slittings, for that matter). Bursting into a Globe smoky with incense, with shouts and drums, forcing itself at us and on us, this is a production whose physicality is its true language. But while anyone going for the gore will get their money’s worth – the opening night added a few more to the tally of fainting audience members – they’ll also get something better: a show that’s shocking, certainly, but whose provocations are never empty.Much is made of Titus as an early play. Criticism has Read more ...