Theatre review: The Winter's Tale (RSC/RST)

Having clawed her way off my list of creatives I avoid like the plague with a decent Macbeth and a very good King Lear, Yaël Farber now makes her RSC debut by continuing her successful recent strategy of tackling Shakespeare plays where not having a sense of humour is not really an obstacle. Yes, I know The Winter's Tale is officially classed as a comedy, but you know as well as I do that having one scene where a con-man (Trevor Fox) pickpockets a hot young shepherd (Ryan Duval) doesn't make it a laugh riot, any more than having a scene where a porter does a dozen puns about equivocation doesn't make Macbeth a knockabout farce. The story of two kings who violently turn on members of their own family, Sicilia's Leontes (Transphobia Inc Employee Bertie Carvel) has been best friends with his Bohemian counterpart Polixenes (John Light) since childhood.

Theatre review: Romeo and Juliet(RSC / RST, Barbican and tour)

It's no secret that I'm not a fan of Romeo and Juliet, but it's also no secret that I'm willing to be persuaded otherwise - Rupert Goold's production was my favourite show of 2010, an accolade I gave it largely because making me like the play is a feat in itself. Since then no version I've seen has given me reason to think that was anything other than an outlier. I wonder how many others see Goold's as such a landmark, because since then the RSC has steered clear of one of Shakespeare's most popular plays: For comparison, Michael Boyd's Antony and Cleopatra opened around the same time, and the company has already revisited that twice since then. Deputy Artistic Director Erica Whyman is the brave soul tasked with finally taking on the star-crossed lovers again, and while this won't be another production to entirely defy my expectations, she's taken a suitably bold approach to the play, and one that attempts to solve many of the problems I have with it in performance.

Theatre review: Macbeth (RSC / RST & Barbican)

Christopher Eccleston has spent so much time recently vocally trying to disassociate himself from Doctor Who that it's hard to remember he's ever done anything else. His latest role sees him return to the stage, for the first time at the RSC, to play the title role in Macbeth. As so often happens with Shakespeare plays (especially those on the syllabus) multiple productions have arrived at the same time, and this one coincides with the critically-panned version at the National. Well, Polly Findlay's production is infinitely more watchable than Rufus Norris', but in some ways is just as problematic. Right from the opening, Findlay and designer Fly Davis show they're not short of interesting ideas, as the audience enters to find King Duncan (David Acton) asleep in his bed, a trio of little girls looking on. These are the witches whose prophecies will turn the tide of the story when Macbeth and Banquo (Raphael Sowole) encounter them soon after a battle.