A Small Mind At The Theatre

When I reviewed the Masque Theatre's Shaxpeare's Box earlier this year there was one glaring omission from the review and that was the rather wonderful and at times very comical music that Richard and Elizabeth York had composed for it. Suitably atmospheric and playful when required, it added much to the whole successful package of the production. The reason it was overlooked was mainly because I knew the chance would come when reviewing Opening Shaxpeare's Box to wax lyrical about it. Although as it happened that original music for the play only appeared during the show via the previous recorded segments played from the computer, it was however great once again to hear it. Opening Shaxpeare's Box was Richard and Elizabeth York tribute to not only the music of the period of Shakespeare's lifetime but also played upon the instruments available at the time. So we had during the show original design harps including the bold and noisy bray harp. We had the fabulous ...

Seemingly ever since I have found theatre, Mr William Shakespeare has had some sort of anniversary and 2016 is no different, this time the anniversary is his death. Now while I admire the significant impact that the bard has had on theatre, I concur with a line that the character of Sue Delve says in Shaxpeare's Box, in that I pretty much forgot about him after GSCE. Well that was until I found myself in the last couple of years at many of his plays, through supporting the performing groups rather than my need to see the plays in question. This is therefore probably why Shaxpeare's Box will possibly be my favourite Shakespeare influenced play this year (and may remain for some time), as its not one of his plays. There is also a love through Brian Wright's magnificent script that went some way to give to me a greater understanding of his work than some pompous academic might relay. Set in modern day Northampton it tells the tale of a discovery of a mysterious box in the ...