I have spent the past forty-eight hours contemplating what to write about the production of Hamlet, I reviewed this past week. When I walk away from a production unmoved, I allow myself time to digest the production so that I might discern some grand meaning from it eventually. This production of one of my favorite Shakespearean [...] Read more »
A Winter’s Tale – A New British Musical
“Yet still we smile to tell the tale.” sings King Leontes and his wife Ekatrina in a new musical production of Shakespeare’s classic A Winter’s Tale at the Landor Theatre in Clapham. It is not the first time we see Shakespeare’s plays transformed into musicals. West Side Story told the story of Romeo & Juliet [...] Read more »
Romeo and Juliet Review
When I was fourteen, fifteen, sixteen even, I don’t think I was that fearless. I think I was like a lot of other adolescents. I was awkward, unsure of myself and wary to try things that weren’t of the familiar or safe kind. I wish I had befriended people like those actors I saw this evening. [...] Read more »
As You Like It Review
Known for its pastoral delights, this quirky Shakespearean comedy is played out inside the gardens of St Paul’s Church, slap bang in the centre of an eternally-busy Covent Garden. To stage this type of drama in these surroundings is a happy idea, but the idea would no doubt be a happier one without rain. Needless to [...] Read more »
Henry V Review
Let’s not beat about the bush, this is one of the best productions of Henry V that I have ever seen. A site-specific work lurking in the depths of the old BBC building on Marylebone High Street, it is a little difficult to find. The number is on the door, but it helps to look [...] Read more »
The Cherry Orchard Review
This was my first visit to Kingston’s Rose Theatre and I must own that it is the first modern auditorium that I have entered that feels warm and welcoming. Many modern spaces are hard and cold and quite dark, so it is a relief on that score. We have long made a fetish of Shakespeare and, [...] Read more »
Hedda Gabler Review
Sometimes the struggle with doing pieces by playwrights of days gone by is that the writer is not in the room to tell us what he or she is thinking. This lack of communication can further be muddled when a play is translated. Meaning gets lost and room for interpretation might just be too expansive. The [...] Read more »
Oedipussy Review
The Lyric Hammersmith have done it again. They’ve opened their doors to something that is nothing short of magic. I felt sad, actually, when I came to the realization that this was my first Spymonkey show. I had first heard of them last summer, when they performed their scratch show Jekyll & Hyde at Latitude. Friends [...] Read more »
A Midsummer’s Night Dream Review
Something must be said about the insurmountable awe I experienced, whilst sitting in Middle Temple Hall in the City of London, watching a play by Sir William Shakespeare in a building that very much stood during the same time that he ruled the London stage. Antic Disposition was the theatre company that produced this time portal [...] Read more »
Uncle Vanya Review
Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant! Not sure if I mentioned, but this was brilliant! I loved every second of Lucy Bailey’s production of this Chekhov classic. Granted, I am a Chekhov fan so it was kind of a given. Yet to see it performed, produced and directed to the standard I saw last night was nothing short [...] Read more »
