Tag Archives: Shakespeare

Macbeth

Young Vic Theatre, London (***)

© Richard Hubert Smith

© Richard Hubert Smith

If you come out of the theatre extolling the virtues of the set rather than the play, well, something’s amiss somewhere. Fine to re-cast Shakespeare in a mode for today but this is the second Young Vic Shakespeare whose obsession with modernity falls on the side of tricksy rather than illuminating. Continue reading

Henry V

Barbican Theatre, London (****)

© Keith Pattison

© Keith Pattison

The RSC’s ambitions know no bounds. Even whilst Greg Doran’s four-play King and Country culminates at the Barbican with revivals of Richard II (with David Tennant), Henry IV parts 1 & 2 (with Antony Sher and Jasper Britton) and Henry V, they’re also embarked on a translation of the complete works of Shakespeare into Chinese, to coincide with the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s First Folio in 2023. Continue reading

As You Like It

Olivier, National Theatre, London (****)

© Johan Persson

© Johan Persson

One normally imagines As You Like It as a rustic rom-com. Polly Findlay hasn’t exactly ignored its usual romantic setting so much as, taking her cue from the characters in the play – and one or two other hints such as comedy routines, a bit of a music hall, a bit of high tech there – has given it a transformative make-over. Continue reading

Measure for Measure

Young Vic Theatre, London (***)

© Keith Pattison

© Keith Pattison

 

David Lan’s Young Vic seems to be going through a particular period of radicalism at present. After Richard Jones’ eye-popping The Trial comes Joe Hill-Gibbins’s bold, iconoclastic Measure for Measure, smashing memory of any previous recent versions. This is definitely a Measure for today, full of post-modern absurdity, bleak, barbed, unforgiving. Continue reading