A Small Mind At The Theatre

Twelfth Night was either my very first Shakespeare encounter or if not that, the one I definitely remember as being so. It was one of two of his plays that I studied at school (I genuinely can't remember which dry boring history one I also studied), and it was, 100% the very first Shakespeare I saw on stage live, via a trip to the RSC as Stratford no less with my school. In that cast were the likes of Tony Britton (Sir Toby Belch), Desmond Barrit (Malvolio), Haydn Gwynne (Olivia) and Derek Griffiths (Feste), and it went some way back then to stop me from hating the bard, despite eventually having the soul ripped from me via the teaching of him. Since I started my epic escapade of theatre back in 2014, my love has been rekindled slowly for the bard with just seeing and enjoying plays being performed, as they should, and not dissected. Also, life has been brought into them by being endlessly innovative, maybe controversially for some, with their telling. My love is perhaps final...

Bernie Wood (Cleopatra) & Matt Fell (Antony) Unless you are one of the gold chain rattling members and higher echelons at the top of The Globe theatre and planning on evicting your innovative artistic director, the good old Bard is currently rife for exploiting in setting, gender and dynamics of theatre, and for me perhaps he should be. It is not as if after 400 odd years there haven't been enough opportunities to see "pure" Shakespeare. Hence why long before I made my way to see Masque Theatre's production of Antony & Cleopatra this week at Abington Park museum, I was already pretty excited to see it. The very reason is that having had the privilege of seeing female Malcolm's and Richard II's in the last few years via the University of Northampton shows, a nicely split gender balance from this show thanks to innovative casting by director John Myhill was on the cards. Throw in a bit of Mike Oldfield to open proceedings and you are going somewher...

While I found the production excellent, I had found the sheer existence of a history play in Richard II the day before a bind to watch, even in its shortened form. However, Titus Andronicus was to be very different in every way. I hadn't seen Titus before, however, I knew enough to know that it was a bit of a bloodbath and a strange little play. As it turned out this production not only was superb but also it is possible my favourite Shakespeare play to date. Unlike Richard II the day earlier, there is a little more traditional casting and in the lead we had Alexander Forester Coles, who brings about a commanding and controlling portrayal in the first half and deftly developing the performance after the interval into a tremendously well timed and batty character as revenge and certain madness of his character unfold. Alexandra Pienaru as Tamora gives a wickedly minxy portrayal of Tamora, Queen of the Goths, exuding all the allure and hostile intent of the character and s...

Long term sufferers of my reviews will have easily picked up the fact that the great Bard, Mr Shakespeare is not really my bag. Usually suffering his slings and arrows often to just continue to support the various groups that I now follow. Richard II represents also the most problematic of his works for me, the history plays. However I am always optimistic, and more especially with the University interpretations as they always do something different, whether bringing his stories into a different timeline, as they did with Romeo & Juliet 's 90s council estate last year, or some innovative casting decisions, Catherine Garlick for instance as Malcolm in Macbeth three years ago. This time they take the later style and in a much bolder move, casting vast swathes of ladies in the men's roles (possibly a necessity though having seen the gender balance this year). They didn't have to give us a female Richard though, but perhaps it was the crowning glory in this production th...

William Shakespeare's Henry V was the sixteenth play that I have seen performed by Masque Theatre and I have to say it is the first that I didn't really enjoy. It was not though because of the performances though, as any play that has someone with the commanding presence such as Scott Bradley as the titular King is never going to be a disappointment. His "breaching" through the audience with the immortal line of "Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more" shook those present and unprepared. However no matter how brilliant the lines were delivered, their drive was lost in a rather ponderous staging of the siege of Harfleur, as the army marched forward to the unseen forces and then rather bizarrely shuffled backwards to do the progression again a few moments later. For me it was this scene that told me much of the sadly lacking of ambition of this production over those many Shakespeare's I have seen in the last couple of years. It's not that...

I have never made it a secret of my dislike of Mr Shakespeare's work. It's not so much that I hate the stories or the characters he creates, its just that my ears fail completely to attune to his language and often while watching performances, more than any other play I lean towards the production and visual aspect of the show. Therefore is was once again that during my latest Shakespeare, I watched costumes, sets, lighting and some most glorious make-up work going on. Not to say that I didn't see the actors superb work, there bodies and facial expressions helping me beyond the troublesome language and managing to take me into the story. It helped this time that I was coming at Macbeth as the first of the bards plays that I was seeing for a second time live, having seen the spectacular (and highly physical) feast that the University Of Northampton provided last year ( review here ). I therefore had a little more knowledge of the tale than I normally would. Here the Masque...

While I had tremendous fun with Merry Wives two days before, I feared The Winter's Tale for one being Shakespeare and tow the fact it wasn't a comedy. This was bad enough for me, and then it turned out that it was Shakespeare doing Greek as well, which was another slight problem that had reared its head in the past. I don't do old language, I am with all this new stuff innit. So I am afraid that I had trouble with this one, but never because it was of a poor quality. It was obvious that there was some superb, super strong acting going on. I commented in a rather ugly way during the interval that for me proper, giving it some welly acting brings the spit levels to the forefront. During Winter's Tale there was some epic spit moments, particularly during the first half where the truly big speeches came. Giving it some real welly for me was the epic performance of Sophie-Rose Darby as the "doomed" Hermione. Her speech in court was quite staggering in every sin...

My ongoing policy to avoid William Shakespeare as much as possible is as successful as many government ones over the years. A Small Mind is not for turning! However he always, endlessly ends up back sitting watching another of the bards many (and long) tales. The Merry Wives Of Windsor has the one thing going for it in my mind from the bard, in that it is one of the comedies. I find them more bearable, but unfortunately locally there seems to have been very few of them performed. So for every comedy I have seen (and this would be only my third live), I have seen an endless stream of dead bodies on stage at the end of some horrific tragedy. Trepidation therefore was high as I approached another prospect of three hours of Shakespeare. Having said all this, I have managed to enjoy the University performances the most because they tend to do something different. This time the different had begun before the play started as when entering the inferno, otherwise known as the Underground, w...

After Richard III, Macbeth, Troilus And Cressida and King Lear, to be honest I had had my fill of Mr Shakespeare this year. I am never going to say I am his biggest fan, however the heady combination of the lovely Masque Theatre, Abington Park and finally some actual light relief from old Bill was enough to create my presence at the show. I had an eye to the sky as I hoped the rain would keep away for my final and only chance to see Much Ado About Nothing , and despite a final heavy shower at just after six. My seat was dry by my arrival at the newly green flagged Abington Park, and the de-registered Abington Park Museum (no politics here!). I could not remember my last foray into the courtyard of the museum but it looked as lovely as ever and was to provide my very first outdoor theatre performance encounter. Director Matthew Fell's production of Shakespeare's comedy transfers the story to a pre-First World War England and tells the tale of two troubled and complicated rom...