Tag Archives: Sam Wanamaker Playhouse

Swive

Sam Wanamaker Playhouse, Shakespeare’s Globe, London ****
Review of perf seen Dec 30, 2019. Runs 1hr 30 mins without interval 

© Johan Persson, Nina Cassells as the young Princess Elizabeth, calling on God to protect her, surrounded on all sides by insecurity…

My goodness, that Ella Hickson doesn’t let the grass grow under her feet for long.

Having circled the globe in time and space with Oil (2016) and the history of fossil fuel, taken on creativity with The Writer (2018), here she is again in winning form playfully, even mischievously with serious intent, re-examining the legacy of that role model to end all female role models, Elizabeth I. Continue reading

Doctor Faustus

Sam Wanamaker Playhouse, Shakespeare’s Globe, London ***
Runs 2hrs 30 mins incl interval

TICKETS 020 7401 9919 or 0871 297 0749 (booking fee applies)
In person: Mon-Sat 10am – 6pm (8pm on perf days);
Sundays: 10am-5pm (7pm on perf days)
On-line: www.shakespearesglobe.com

© Marc Brenner, Jocelyn Jee Esien as Doctor Faustus in Paulette Randall's gender switched production...

© Marc Brenner, Jocelyn Jee Esien as Doctor Faustus in Paulette Randall’s gender switched production…

Review by Carole Woddis of performance seen Dec 28, 2018:

I love Christopher Marlowe. I love the raciness and rebel in him. And sometimes, particularly in Paulette Randall’s reframed version here at Shakespeare’s Globe with Doctor Faustus, the omnivorous, greedy scholar as a woman selling her soul to the Devil for more knowledge and more of everything material, you could feel the young Marlowe within riding those waves as if putting two fingers up to the Establishment of his times. Continue reading

The Secret Theatre

Sam Wanamaker Playhouse, Shakespeare’s Globe, London
****

© Marc Brenner, Aidan McArdle as Sir Francis Walsingham, Elizabeth's Secretary of State and creator of national security with a web of spies and double agents.

© Marc Brenner, Aidan McArdle as Sir Francis Walsingham, Elizabeth’s Secretary of State and creator of national security with a web of spies and double agents.

What with the BBC’s Gunpowder Plot and now Anders Lustgarten’s spymaster drama, we really seem unable to quite slough off our fascination with those grisly times when terrorism came in Catholic terms and we were once again at daggers drawn with our European neighbours. Continue reading

The Inn at Lydda

Sam Wanamaker Playhouse, Shakespeare’s Globe, London (***)

© Marc Brenner, Samuel Collings (Jesus), Stephen Boxer (Tiberius Caesar)

Well here’s a rum to-do. An imaginary meeting between the Roman Emperor Tiberius Caesar and Jesus of Nazareth is American academic and playwright, John Wolfson’s opportunity for a ripe crusade on power and its corruptions. Continue reading

The Broken Heart

Sam Wanamaker Playhouse, Shakespeare’s Globe, London

© Marc Brenner

John Ford (1586-c1640) doesn’t make it easy. A play, set in Sparta (in Elizabethan costume) about jealousy,  love and revenge, his language and construction not to mention names of characters – Orgilus, Amyclas, Nearchus, Prophilus, Ithocles etc – stretch comprehension not to say pronunciation to an actor’s and audience’s limit. Continue reading