Globe
Heather Neill
Forget the cloak in the puddle. Never mind potatoes and tobacco. The children's book cliché of Sir Walter Raleigh (or Ralegh as he seems to have preferred in an age of changeable spelling) represents little of the real man and is at best misleading. The cloak incident was a later invention and potatoes and tobacco were already known before Ralegh's adventures in the New World. He did, however, popularise the smoking of tobacco at court.Good-looking and courageous, Ralegh was a favourite of Queen Elizabeth. He fought with the Huguenots in France, helped quell rebellion in Ireland, attempted to Read more ...
Rachel Halliburton
Macbeth has rarely seemed quite as metrosexual as in this gorgeous shadow-painted production that marks Globe artistic director Michelle Terry’s first production in the Sam Wanamaker theatre. Even in a play that walks the tightrope between its anti-hero’s fear and his ambition, it’s a daring, occasionally counterintuitive ploy – yet after a precarious start, it proves a rich and rewarding reading of one of Shakespeare’s more problematic texts.That’s down in no small part to the smouldering on-stage chemistry between Paul Ready’s empathetic, emotionally mercurial Macbeth and Terry herself Read more ...
Heather Neill
Robert Hastie is a little late for our meeting. Directing Shakespeare's darkest tragedy in London while also running Sheffield Theatres must sometimes cause a logjam of simultaneous demands, but whatever the morning's problem in the north of England, he remains smiling, relaxed, thoughtful and gracious during a break from rehearsals.Hastie (pictured below right © James Stewart) began as an actor. After reading English at Cambridge he won a scholarship to RADA, benefitting, he says, from a small window when the course led to a degree and there was still funding available. He was in the Read more ...
Tom Birchenough
The end-of-season contemporary writing slot at the Globe must be a proposal as full of promise for playwrights as it is perhaps intimidating. There’s the sheer scale of the space and the chance to write for a large cast; a historical subject seems to be part of the brief, so a chance to experiment for many writers, while despite a run that’s rarely more than a dozen performances, it brings an investment in rehearsal time and other support that commercial theatre couldn’t offer.The challenge, of course, is living up to the rest of the repertoire, as well as finding material that somehow also Read more ...
Tom Birchenough
If ever there was a play of “well bandied” words, it’s surely Love’s Labour’s Lost. The early Shakespearean comedy may once have hit a highpoint for verbal wit, but much of that context – the word play, the allusions, the sheer stylistic preening that must have had a certain in-joke quality for its initial courtly audience – has rather evaporated over the centuries.So it’s to the credit of Nick Bagnall’s new production that the Playhouse audience clearly comes away on an upbeat note. And that’s despite that perplexing final scene, one that disrupts the traditional marriage ending (“our wooing Read more ...
Laura de Lisle
It feels like Michelle Terry’s first summer season at the Globe has been building up to Emilia for a while now. The theme is Shakespeare and race, so Othello was something of a given. It's joined by The Winter’s Tale, as if the Emilias of these two plays have been waiting for their chance to step into the spotlight. This new work, written by Morgan Lloyd Malcolm and directed by Nicole Charles, has a lot of potential that it never quite realises.Eponymous heroine Emilia Bassano, who appears at three stages in her long life (Leah Harvey, Vinette Robinson and Clare Perkins), was the first woman Read more ...
Laura de Lisle
Claire van Kampen has a history of providing roles for her husband, Mark Rylance. He starred in her critically acclaimed Farinelli and the King three years ago, and now she directs him as Iago in the Globe's production of Othello, with Moonlight actor André Holland as the eponymous general.Rylance (pictured below) has much more Globe experience, but Holland's Shakespearen pedigree is strong too – he's a veteran of New York's Shakespeare in the Park, so very much at home delivering iambic pentameter in the open air. His soft Alabama accent serves to separate him from the rest of the cast, Read more ...
alexandra.coghlan
“A sad tale’s best for winter,” Leontes’ young son Mamillius tells us. By that logic the current summer heatwave should be bringing us a Winter’s Tale overflowing with joy – the songs of Bohemia drowning out the shouted accusations and desperate howls of Sicilia. But that’s not what director Blanche McIntyre has in mind.From Will Keen’s Leontes, twitching and ticking with violence, to the bare stage and makeshift revels of Bohemia, this is a decidedly chilly take on Shakespeare’s mercurial late play. Even the bear is an austerity predator – nothing more than a painted banner, barely enough Read more ...
Matt Wolf
Those who find the Bard tough going – wasn't that one of Emma Rice's admissions back in the day? – should beat a path to The Two Noble Kinsmen, a late-career collaboration with John Fletcher that emerges as Shakespeare lite. Remembered (dimly) as the play that opened the Swan Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon in 1986, the play tells of a bromance gone awry when competition for a woman gets in the way. Throw in Morris dancing, some colourful costumes and a burst of musicals-worthy vocals from Olivier Award-winner Matt Henry (Kinky Boots), and you've got a production that feels as if it will try Read more ...
Tom Birchenough
There’s a distinct feeling of back to basics to this opening double bill at the Globe under the theatre’s new Artistic Director Michelle Terry. The elaborations (some would say gimmickry) of Emma Rice’s short tenure have been reined back, and a new concentration prevails. This first presentation – two plays written around 1599, the year in which Shakespeare's original Globe opened: As You Like It was staged that year, Hamlet a little later – is built on a new approach to ensemble that draws on a broader casting base than usual.That involved a gender-neutral approach (with a 50:50 gender ratio Read more ...
alexandra.coghlan
Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons: A Reimagining – it’s not a title that trips off the tongue. Nor one, frankly, that inspires much excitement, with its clunky functionality and on-trend buzzword. But set that aside and buy a ticket immediately, because Gyre & Gimble have made magic with their latest show.Founded in 2014 by former War Horse puppeteers Finn Caldwell and Toby Olie, Gyre & Gimble’s style of puppet-led theatre has established itself in productions including The Grinning Man, The Lorax and The Elephantom as some of the most thoughtful and joyful to be seen on stage. But with The Read more ...
Matt Wolf
It's the people who are problematic, not the play. That's one take-away sentiment afforded by Caroline Byrne's sparky and provocative take on All's Well That Ends Well, that ever-peculiar Shakespeare "comedy" (really?) whose title is in ironic contrast to its emotional terrain. Making her debut at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse, having previously directed The Taming of the Shrew on the Globe's main stage, Byrne widens the abyss between the sexes that has always marked out this troublesome late play. Not for the first time, its supposedly tidy resolution makes one wonder what further Read more ...