Shakespeare
Hamlet, Bristol Old Vic On Screen review - faithful capture of a stage performanceThursday, 06 April 2023
This is a Hamlet for fans of speed-dating. It comes in at just over the two-hour mark, which is standard for a feature film. But considering the uncut text runs to four hours, as it did in the 1996 Kenneth Branagh film (and his earlier stage... Read more... |
The Winter's Tale, Shakespeare's Globe review - clever concept never quite catches fireSaturday, 04 March 2023
As course after course of Noma-style creations are served up to Leontes and his guests – curious mouthfuls with their accompanying spoons, edible branches as though straight from the tree, elaborate miniatures ritually revealed from beneath a cloche... Read more... |
Macbeth (an undoing), Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh - audacious update of the Scottish playMonday, 13 February 2023
You’d hardly call a director particularly perceptive for highlighting Lady Macbeth as the true power behind the throne, scheming and cajoling her husband’s bloody ascent to the crown. In her audacious, provocative and thoroughly compelling Macbeth (... Read more... |
Titus Andronicus, Sam Wanamaker Playhouse review - notorious play hits and missesFriday, 03 February 2023
If All's Well That Ends Well, Measure for Measure and Troilus and Cressida have earned the sobriquet "‘problem plays", what price Titus Andronicus? Does a director seek out a Saw vibe for the horror? Do they go for a deadpan Spinal Tap’s... Read more... |
Othello, Lyric Hammersmith review - Frantic Assembly's high-energy take on the MoorTuesday, 31 January 2023
Frantic Assembly’s Othello, originally co-developed with the Lyric in 2008, is back in its third iteration, and it’s still not exactly the play you studied at school or saw other companies perform. In some ways, that’s all to the good.Frantic’s... Read more... |
As You Like It, @sohoplace review - music-filled, warm-hearted celebrationFriday, 16 December 2022
The scene is set onstage in the first minutes. And it remains a stage throughout this harmonious production. The action takes place in a severe court and a more liberal forest, but really the setting is always a place of imagination, a theatre.... Read more... |
Othello, National Theatre review - ambitious but emotionally underpoweredSaturday, 10 December 2022
Clint Dyer is the first black director of Othello at the National Theatre, a venue that once staged the piece with its actor founder Laurence Olivier playing the lead role in blackface. We are reminded of this now-reviled practice before... Read more... |
The Tempest, Shakespeare's Globe review - occasional gales of laughter drown out subtletySaturday, 06 August 2022
Alexei Sayle, in his angry young man phase, once said that you can always tell when you’re watching a Shakespeare comedy, because NOBODY'S LAUGHING. That’s not entirely true, of course, but sometimes a director has to go looking for the LOLs and... Read more... |
Much Ado About Nothing, National Theatre review - Shakespeare’s comedy goes Hollywood musicalFriday, 22 July 2022
After gender-flipping the National’s Malvolio, the director Simon Godwin might have been expected to be equally bold with Much Ado About Nothing at the same address. A same-sex Beatrice and Benedick romance? Dogberry in bondage gear, zonked out on... Read more... |
The Tempest, Theatre Royal, Bath review - multi-dimensional Shakespeare classic overpowered by comedySaturday, 09 July 2022
The Tempest, a rich and profound late work, is probably Shakespeare’s most complex and layered play: the combination of power politics, philosophy, magic and romance is dizzying and a challenge to any director who attempts to encompass the... Read more... |
First Person: director Richard Wilson on a musical midsummer night film premiereTuesday, 21 June 2022
In today’s near-normal times it is easy to forget how hard COVID-19 had hit the music industry, especially for touring orchestras like the Academy of St Martin in the Fields. Masked, socially-distanced performances; streamed concerts from empty... Read more... |
King Lear, Shakespeare's Globe review - eviscerates emotionally while illuminating a society rotten with liesMonday, 20 June 2022
Kathryn Hunter’s performance as Lear forges its heat from contradictions. She is as frail as she is strong, as detestable as she is loveable, as powerfully charismatic as she is physically diminutive. That she is a woman playing a man is the least... Read more... |
