Theatre review: The Taming of the Shrew(RSC / RST & tour)

With Shakespeare's plays so well-known, and the amount of people who presumably include a theatre trip to one of the plays, whichever one's playing, in a visit to Stratford-upon-Avon, the RSC must get more than its share of audience members who don't really look at the description of the show. You could even miss the fact that Justin Audibert's production of The Taming of the Shrew was going to be notably high-concept. That would explain the "ooooohhhh"s of sudden understanding, after opening scenes full of women eager to push the plot forward, when Baptista (Amanda Harris) introduces her eldest and most difficult son, Katherine (Joseph Arkley.) Audibert's idea isn't to cross-cast the play but to set it in an alternate 1590 (the likely year of the play's premiere,) in which the world has developed exactly the same, but as a matriarchy. So wealthy women like Baptista run the show, and their sons depend on marriage to secure their futures. But the yobbish Katherine is too independent to attract a husband when there's more compliant men like his brother Bianco (James Cooney) around.

Theatre review: As You Like It (RSC / RST & tour)

A chaotic train journey nearly scuppered my first Stratford-upon-Avon trip of 2019, but it's a good job I made it in the end because Kimberley Sykes' low-key metatheatrical As You Like It is at times delightful. Stephen Brimson Lewis' design for the opening scenes is a simple grass carpet on the thrust in front of black curtains, although the court of the usurping Duke Frederick (Antony Byrne) doesn't seem particularly austere to start with - but the back story in which he banished his own brother, the lawful Duke, is an indicator that nobody's safe from his violent whims, not even his niece Rosalind (Lucy Phelps.) He's allowed her to stay on at court for the sake of his own daughter, but a reminder that there are still people loyal to his exiled brother makes him kick her out. That reminder comes in the form of the son of a former enemy, and when Rosalind is banished so is Orlando (David Ajao.) They both end up in hiding in the forest, which would be great for them because they've fallen in love; except neither knows the other is there.

Theatre review: Miss Littlewood

The influential theatre director and coat thief Joan Littlewood will always be associated with Stratford, so it seems inevitable that a new musical about her life would premiere there; but maybe there was some confusion about which Stratford, because instead of East London Miss Littlewood has turned up in the West Midlands, opening at the RSC. Sam Kenyon's musical sees Joan Littlewood (Clare Burt) narrate her own life, taking control of the story in a way that will prove characteristic of the way she worked. The show's conceit is that a further six actors also play her in various stages of her life, showing her getting older, but also suggesting constant reinvention - the younger Joans all represent different aspects of her personality, the older ones an attempt to tie them all together.