Theatre review: Cymbeline(Sam Wanamaker Playhouse)

If Love's Labour's Lost can feel like the young Shakespeare workshopping setpieces he would perfect later in his career, Cymbeline could be the older playwright collecting every mad idea he couldn't fit into an earlier play, then throwing them all together to see what happens. The story of Roman Britain sees Princess Innogen (Gabrielle Brooks) separated from her exiled spouse, to be reunited only after a deranged fairytale quest that includes a man hiding in a trunk, a health tonic that's actually a deadly poison that's actually just a sleeping draught, meeting a pair of siblings she never knew existed, and a headless corpse largely played for laughs. The Swanamaker's latest take on the play gender-flips a lot of characters including the titular king; I understand the desire for a powerful female leader figure, but it feels a bit of a pyrrhic victory for that leader to struggle to make an impression because she spends the whole play on more sedatives than a 1980s soap opera housewife.

Theatre review: Macbeth (Shakespeare's Globe)

The Globe's latest Macbeth comes courtesy of director Abigail Graham, who casts Max Bennett as the Scottish nobleman whose prowess on the battlefield earns him extra honours. But thanks to a prophecy from three witches, he expects even more: They promised him the throne, and spurred on by his wife he decides not to wait and see if fate will make the prophecy true, but instead murders the King and takes his place straight away. Compared to most recent Globe productions Graham's doesn't play around with gender with quite as much gleeful abandon, but we still get a Queen instead of a King - Tamzin Griffin's Queen Duncan comes across as a capable but uninspiring leader, who brushes over the fact that she's said Macbeth and Banquo (Fode Simbo) were equally important to the military victory, but only actually rewarded the former.

Re-review: Much Ado About Nothing (Shakespeare's Globe & tour)

Having become a bit of a Globe completist in recent years, I've tended to return to its small-scale touring productions anyway, but it was especially inevitable I'd want to see Max Webster's fresh take on Much Ado About Nothing again, which made it into my Top Ten shows of 2014, and was my joint favourite Shakespeare of the year. You can read my original review here; for the 2015 tour three of the original cast of eight have returned: Robert Pickavance's Leonato, Jim Kitson's Don Pedro, and the stalwart of these touring comedies, Emma Pallant's superbly acidic Beatrice. Sadly the original #SexyBenedick Simon Bubb hasn't returned, but Christopher Harper gives Benedick a geeky edge that contrasts well with Pallant's po-faced deliveries. In any case, the addition of Aaron Anthony as Claudio (tonight dealing well with an epaulette-based mishap) means the show's not short on eye-candy.