Shakespeare
O for Muse of FireMonday, 23 September 2013
The idea behind Muse of Fire was a simple one. We wanted to spend a year travelling the world and find out from as many sources as we could why Shakespeare is both so loved and so feared. We wanted to try and eradicate our own deep-rooted anxieties... Read more... |
Much Ado About Nothing, Old VicFriday, 20 September 2013
“What, my dear Lady Disdain! Are you yet living?” Surely never before has Benedick’s opening quip cut so close to the literal, nor drawn such a laugh from its audience. With a combined age of 158, the romantic leads in Mark Rylance’s Much Ado About... Read more... |
A Midsummer Night's Dream, Noël Coward TheatreWednesday, 18 September 2013
It’s a nothing of a line – “Hail mortal” – spoken by nobody important, but in Michael Grandage’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream it becomes the basis for an entire concept. A trivial bit of linguistic sleight of hand turns it into “Inhale mortal” and... Read more... |
Macbeth, St. Peter's Church, ManchesterSunday, 07 July 2013
Talk about absence making the heart grow fonder! I'm referring not simply to the news value of Kenneth Branagh making one of his comparatively rare returns to the theatre, this from an actor (now a knight) who in his early years popped up regularly... Read more... |
Macbeth, Shakespeare's GlobeFriday, 05 July 2013
This is the directorial debut of Eve Best, better known as a talented classical and comedic actress, who was last at Shakespeare's Globe appearing as Beatrice in a superb Much Ado About Nothing opposite Charles Edwards's Benedick.Best's reading... Read more... |
Much Ado About NothingThursday, 13 June 2013
Ever wondered what Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel creator, not to mention superhero movie A-lister Josh Whedon, does during his down time? Well, apparently he gets his pals together to have a go at the Bard. And by way of proof, along comes... Read more... |
10 Questions for Joss WhedonMonday, 10 June 2013
Few heroes of cult genre television ever manage the transition into mainstream financial success – although JJ Abrams hasn't been doing too badly for himself – and for many years Joss Whedon's deified status among fans of his various lovingly... Read more... |
A Midsummer Night's Dream, Shakespeare's GlobeFriday, 31 May 2013
Midsummer’s Eve may still be a month away and the evenings more bracing than balmy, but despite a serious chill still in the air the Globe Theatre yesterday proved yet again that it exists in its own microclimate. It’s a theatre and a company made... Read more... |
Imeneo, Academy of Ancient Music, Hogwood, Barbican HallThursday, 30 May 2013
There are Handel operas where you wait impatiently for the handful of truly original set-pieces to light up the action, hoping the singers are equal to their challenges. One such is surely Siroe, Re di Persia, bravely staged at the Göttingen Handel... Read more... |
Falstaff, Glyndebourne Festival OperaMonday, 20 May 2013
In this revival of Richard Jones's 2009 production, the action has been very effectively shifted to post-war Windsor with Sir John Falstaff (Laurent Naouri) as down-at-heel gentry maintaining delusions of superiority, rubbing up against an ascendant... Read more... |
The Tempest, Shakespeare's GlobeFriday, 03 May 2013
A thunder sheet booms, a didgeridoo hums distantly, a model ship rears and pitches its way forward through the waves of groundlings and suddenly we find ourselves washed up on the shores of the Globe for another season. All eyes may be on the newly... Read more... |
Othello, National TheatreWednesday, 24 April 2013
It’s apt that a drama set among soldiers should be presented with military precision; but corruption, cruelty and perversion can lurk amid the human innards of the machine of war, and in Nicholas Hytner’s well-oiled, impeccably paced production of... Read more... |
