Theatre review: The Taming of the Shrew (Shakespeare's Globe)

There's only really two things wrong with The Taming of the Shrew: One of them is half the plot, and the other is the other half. In Padua, the beautiful Bianca (Sophie Mercell) has many suitors, including the wealthy locals Gremio (Nigel Barrett) and Hortensio (Lizzie Hopley,) and recently-arrived Lucentio (Yasmin Taheri.) They compete for Bianca's hand in a needlessly convoluted scheme involving assuming fake identities, swapping around real identities, and a steadfast refusal to say a single funny line. The other storyline gives the play its title, as Bianca is not allowed to get married until her older sister Katherina (Thalissa Teixeira) does, and as she's considered a difficult woman, it seems she never will. So Hortensio recruits his mercenary friend Petruchio (Andrew Leung) to marry Katherina (it's not like she has any say in the matter) and once that's done he proceeds to bend her to his will through a sustained campaign of gaslighting and literal torture as defined by the UN.

Theatre review: The Tempest (RSC / RST)

2023 marks the 400th anniversary of the First Folio's publication, and both the RSC and the Globe are using that as the theme for their seasons, predominantly programming plays that don't exist in quarto form, so wouldn't have survived if they hadn't been included in the OG collected works edition. This means there's going to be a bit of overlap between the two major Shakespeare venues, and Stratford-upon-Avon kicks off the year with one of those that's getting multiple productions, and the one that got the opening slot in the Folio itself: Elizabeth Freestone's production of The Tempest uses the titular bad weather as a prompt to theme the play around the climate crisis, and attempt a carbon-neutral, waste-free production - Tom Piper and Natasha Ward's designs reuse props and costumes from past productions, upcycle a lot of plastic rubbish, and rescue a huge distressed mirror from Indhu Rubasingham's bins.

Theatre review: Islands

Before the current creative team at the Bush got into the pretty good run they've enjoyed for the last couple of years, there was a very shaky six months or so. For me, the only redeeming quality of that time came from Caroline Horton's charming one-woman show You're Not Like the Others Girls Chrissy, so the prospect of Horton and director Omar Elerian teaming up again at the venue was one I'd been looking forward to. Of course, I don't expect writers to do the same thing in every show nor would I want them to, but if Islands is trying to be radically different it succeeds a bit too well - in that her last show was actually good. Horton plays Mary, a self-proclaimed god who, along with sidekicks Agent (John Biddle) and Swill (Seiriol Davies) form a holy trinity who launch a floating island, so they can stay away from the stinking Shitworld below, and keep all their cherries for themselves.