Theatre review: Othello (RSC / RST)

After a soft-launch of comparatively rare plays in generally fun productions, the Evans/Harvey era of the RSC gets its first big-ticket Shakespeare revival, and all I can say is I hope the opening six months are a more accurate sign of what's to come than Tim Carroll's interminable, dusty go at Othello. Judith Bowden's costumes put us squarely in the original setting of Renaissance Venice, enjoying a period of sustained military success in large part thanks to the black general Othello (John Douglas Thompson.) As such, when Turkey invades the Venetian colonies in Cyprus, he has to interrupt his honeymoon to lead the counter-attack, but he takes his new wife Desdemona (Juliet Rylance) with him, and they remain there for the handover of power. But unbeknownst to him Othello has an enemy in his most trusted lieutenant, Iago (Will Keen.)

Stage-to-screen review: Macbeth (See-Saw Films)

Once again a quiet August sees me throw a few screen versions of stage plays into the mix, and as the 2015 version of Macbeth is about to expire on Netflix I thought if I was going to bother with it at all I'd better get on with it. Set very much in the grubby middle ages of the story's inspiration, Justin Kurzel's film opens with the titular couple burying a child, so we can get that particular clichéd misreading of the text out of the way early on. To be fair this is only really offered as an explanation for Lady Macbeth's (Marion Cotillard) actions, as Macbeth's (Michael Fassbender) seem very much motivated by PTSD and the general bloody ruthlessness of the times: The action properly begins with the gruesome battle he leads to victory; it's actually during the battle that he first spots the three witches (who are seemingly Romulans?) who'll eventually prophesy his rise to the throne of Scotland.

Theatre review: Hamlet (Riverside Studios)

Following last year's solo Great Expectations, Eddie Izzard returns to the stage, once again with her older brother Mark adapting a famous work into a monologue. This time, though, instead of a novel with a fair amount of first-person narration to keep the story going, it's Shakespeare's most lauded tragedy Hamlet, a story that's already written for the stage. So the source material is all dialogue, leaving it entirely down to the performer to make sure the audience knows who's saying what to whom. Eddie Izzard does of course have a lot of acting credits but remains best known as a comedian, and if she's previously performed Shakespeare professionally I can't find any reference to it, so this endeavour has to fall somewhere between ambitious and foolhardy, with the distinct possibility of coming across as pure vanity project. What we get in the end is a little bit of all of the above.

Theatre review: Othello (Sam Wanamaker Playhouse)

Interesting times to be visiting the Globe, the venue that can do everything except draft a press release that doesn't dig them into a deeper hole. Ola Ince is looking like one of those directors who can reinvent a Shakespeare play to fit a very specific modern-day issue, and actually follow through with the idea. After her 2021 Romeo & Juliet was filtered through the way Tory cuts would have caused every beat of the story, her Othello in the Swanamaker becomes about racism in the Metropolitan Police, and some of the language is modified to match this setting: Othello is no longer referred to as the General but the Guvnor, Desdemona is usually called Desi, one of the story's inciting incidents now involves Othello choosing an Eton old boy as his new Inspector rather than a more experienced cop, and instead of a military action from Venice to Cyprus, the characters from Scotland Yard are going on an undercover cartel bust in Docklands.

Theatre review: Macbeth (Donmar Warehouse)

Completing the pair of returning 60th Anniversary Doctor Who stars leading West End shows, David Tennant gets to do his Macbeth at the Donald and Margot Warehouse. And while this is undoubtedly a more successful evening than the one Catherine Tate's lumbered herself with, I also came out of it thinking it could have been scarier. Aside from the star casting of Tennant and Cush Jumbo as Lady Macbeth, the big selling point of Max Webster's production is the use of binaural technology: The sound design that gives the audience, who wear headphones, a 3D audio experience. I've seen a couple of shows that have used it before, which is why I thought this story of witches and murders might be in for a particularly creepy take when you can potentially have spooky noises creep up on people in the seeming safety of their seats.

Theatre review: King Lear (Wyndham's)

The received wisdom on Kenneth Branagh is that he's been living out a lifelong Laurence Olivier fixation by playing all the major roles he was most associated with, in performances that increasingly make the late Baron of Brighton seem like a master of gritty naturalism. This has inevitably built up to King Lear, and watching the production - which he also, of course, directs himself in - I have to wonder if this is really the case, or if in fact his role models are the 19th century actor-managers who gave their names to the West End theatres he plays in. Certainly the performances, not only his own but those he gets out of a cast largely made up of recent graduates, are the kind of thing you can imagine a Victorian audience being used to. The evening opens with a projection of the Earth seen from space, perhaps as a clue to where SirKenBran's performance will be visible from.

Theatre review: The Comedy of Errors (Shakespeare's Globe)

Sean Holmes liked a touch of European avant garde theatre when he was running the Lyric Hammersmith, and since coming to Shakespeare's Globe he's been responsible for some of the more eye-catching high-concept productions there, but this year he gets the tights and codpieces of the more "heritage" shows for The Comedy of Errors. There's also a hint of Les Misérables as the show opens, with flag-waving and singing about how great Ephesus is, and how they've fought back against the injustices done to them by Syracuse, with a hostile environment (/automatic death sentence) for any Syracusians who wash up on their shores. This is bad news for a number of the characters, but particularly Egeus (Paul Rider,) who's the only one to get caught. Egeus was shipwrecked while searching for his long-lost identical twin sons, and their identical twin servants.

Theatre review: Macbeth / Partners of GreatnessThe Faction / Wilton's Music Hall & Tour

The Faction are another established Fringe company whose work I've been following for many years - predating this blog, so I'm kind of going on memory to say I think I first encountered them with an all-male Macbeth. Director Mark Leipacher's new take on the Scottish Play goes for gender parity, although that's mainly because it uses only two actors: Macbeth / Partners of Greatness cuts down the cast to just the titular character and his wife, telling the story entirely from their perspective. The latter has been renamed Bellona, after the line early on calling Macbeth "Bellona's bridegroom," so perhaps the idea is to posit her as the more bloodthirsty of the pair, as a literal Roman war deity. Either that or it's a reference to Lidl's own-brand version of Kinder Bueno, given some of the things that happen later on in the show I'm not sure we can discount anything entirely.

Theatre review: Hamlet (Lazarus / Southwark Playhouse)

I don't have a lot of firm rules for myself on how to write reviews, and those I do have mainly involve avoiding bad habits I dislike in other writers. So I try to always include some description, however cursory, of a play's basic story: Everyone's knowledge and experience is different, so why should I assume that a reader already knows the plot, even if the play's Hamlet? But it's not always easy to follow my own rule if the production itself seems to make the assumption that the audience is ahead of the game - if it's not really telling a story, how do I summarise it? I've been following the work of Lazarus Theatre Company on and off over the years, especially since they've become regulars at Southwark Playhouse. Ricky Dukes' productions of the classics tend to be ambitious, with all that that entails, but they always feel like a risk worth taking: Results can be mixed, but there's usually at the very least some interesting elements to take from his ideas. But he may have overreached himself this time.

Theatre review: Othello (National Theatre / Lyttelton)

Othello must be one of the most-frequently performed Shakespeare plays at the National Theatre, and the latest production by Deputy Artistic Director Clint Dyer - the first at the venue by a black director - is in part inspired by how long the version with Laurence Olivier in blackface continued to hold pride of place in the archive. That's one of the photos that adorn the back wall of the stage as the audience enters the Lyttelton, among an ever-changing projection display of past production posters that suggests the different approaches to the play taken over the years. As the display ticks past the years since it was written, we get the idea that we've reached a very 2022 reading, which strips the play back to show its racial conflicts as the primary motivator. Here, only Giles Terrera's General Othello isn't white; almost everyone in the rest of the cast doubles as a member of a sinister, black-shirted chorus Dyer has christened the System.

Theatre review: The Prince

In addition to the usual pre-show information most theatres send to audiences a couple of days before the show, the email from Southwark Playhouse about Abigail Thorn's The Prince also comes with an added warning that tickets will be checked multiple times, and audience members must not attempt to interact with the cast after the performance. It's depressingly easy to guess what this might be all about, and indeed the cast list confirms that, with a number of trans and non-binary cast members and a corresponding theme in the play itself, there's extra security because of threats from terven. Two trans women also find themselves in danger in the story itself, but the violence is both more immediate, and more surreal, as Sam (Joni Ayton-Kent) and Jen (Mary Malone) materialise on a battlefield at the start of Shakespeare's Henry IV Part 1.

Theatre review: Julius Caesar(Shakespeare's Globe & Tour)

Straight after a play about a tyrant going unnoticed until it's too late and he's grabbed all the power, I'm off to Shakespeare's play about a potential tyrant who's disposed of before he can do any damage; although whether the threat was ever real is the big question in Julius Caesar. It's this year's Tiny Tour show from the Globe, with eight actors taking on all the roles (and some extra economising in that there's no additional onstage musicians this year.) Diane Page directs Globe veteran Dickon Tyrrell in the plum part that gives an actor the title role, a dramatic death scene, and plenty of time to nap backstage. Caesar has just defeated Rome's previous hero-turned-villain, Pompey, in battle at the start of the play, and the city has shown its gratitude by offering him the crown. He's grudgingly accepted, but was his initial refusal the gentleman protesting too much? Cassius (Charlotte Bate) thinks so.

Theatre review: Wars of the Roses (RSC / RST)

I'm back in Stratford-upon-Avon for the Empire Strikes Back of Shakespeare's York v Lancaster trilogy: Originally titled Richard, Duke of York, most commonly (and confusingly) known as Henry VI Part 3, the RSC have opted for the blindingly obvious title that both Shakespeare and the First Folio editors managed to miss, Wars of the Roses. Following straight on from Rebellion, the gloves are off and so are any masks hiding who's behind the threats to Henry VI's reign. The Duke of York (Oliver Alvin-Wilson) makes his challenge known, and begins to muster forces, supported by his sons Edward, later Edward IV (Ashley D Gayle,) George (Ben Hall) and Richard (Arthur Hughes.) When the "kingmaker" Warwick (Nicholas Karimi) pledges his allegiance to the Yorkist cause as well, their victory seems assured.

Theatre review: The Merchant of Venice(Sam Wanamaker Playhouse)

Measure for Measure, Hamlet and The Merchant of Venice doesn't sound like the most exciting season imaginable on paper, but the Swanamaker has been firing on all cylinders this winter, and in what could have been the least promising offering of all it turns out they've saved the best till last: Abigail Graham's is probably the best Merchant I've ever seen, and not just because she's cut the entirety of Act 5. In fact, as we've come to expect from the Globe, it's not a production that's precious with the text, cutting and reshuffling to serve its purpose. In this instance, it's to set the action in the high-risk, masculine, bullying culture of modern-day city traders, so we open with Aaron Vodovoz' geeky Launcelot Gobbo asking for a job with Bassanio (Michael Marcus.) He's made to play a drinking game as part of his application, which mainly involves a penalty every time he says the word "Jew" - and as he's talking about wanting to leave his current employer, the Jewish moneylender Shylock, he says it a lot. He ends up very drunk and humiliated, but gets the job.

Theatre review: Measure for Measure(Sam Wanamaker Playhouse)

PREVIEW DISCLAIMER: I can't easily tell from the Globe website when the press night is due, but as I had a member of the creative team sitting next to me making notes I'm guessing we're still in the preview period for this one.

I'm going to get a big grumble out of the way first this time, because I have a lot of good things to say about Blanche McIntyre's production of Measure for Measure, and don't want them to be overshadowed by something that's a regular irritation. But you know, if it's a regular irritation at one particular theatre that's because they just keep doing it, namely underselling how long a show is. I know I often say I like short shows, so can understand why saying a show isn't that long is good marketing, but if it's not true the advertised running time is useless at best, a lie at worst. I use the info to figure out when and how is the best way to get home, especially when, like tonight, a Tube strike makes that more complicated. So as seems to happen every time I go to the Globe now, I spent the last half-hour wondering if the play would overrun by 15 minutes (can still catch my train) or 20 (1 hour 15 minute gap until the next one for some reason, not getting home until after midnight) instead of paying attention to the show*.

Radio review: Othello

Nowadays the title character of Othello is pretty much universally seen as being a black man (and given some of the specific racist language in the play, I tend to agree that's probably what Shakespeare had in mind,) but the word "Moor" was pretty loosely defined at the time, and as well as Africans could encompass anyone Middle-Eastern or Muslim. This is the angle Emma Harding takes for another of her very specific, modern day Shakespeare adaptations, which first aired on Radio 3 in 2020: Othello (Khalid Abdalla) is a Muslim who converted to Christianity, his military skill seeing him quickly rise to the position of General in the Venetian army. Not previously romantically inclined, he's just eloped with the young noblewoman Desdemona (Cassie Layton) when he's given an urgent command: Turkey has sent forces in to recapture Cyprus, and Othello must lead the counterattack.

Theatre review: The Tempest(Shakespeare's Globe & Tour)

The second of two tiny tour shows playing at the Globe this summer is Brendan O’Hea's production of The Tempest; not a play I like as much as the companion piece, As You Like It, but of course the flipside to that is that I don't come into it with quite as high expectations. So while it's still true that these smaller-scale shows suffer from the lack of a full crowd (the make-do-and-mend style is endearing but really gets much of its energy from audience interaction,) this is two hours that go by pretty briskly. Prospero (Mark Desebrock) was deposed as Duke of Milan after showing a complete lack of interest in doing the job, and fled to sea with only his baby daughter and a set of magic books that he used to obtain vast powers. On arriving on a small, almost-deserted island, he used these powers to enslave the inhabitants Ariel (Emma Ernest) and Caliban (Stephenson Ardern-Sodje,) before waiting years for a chance to take revenge on the usurpers and reclaim his dukedom.

Theatre review: Romeo & Juliet (Shakespeare's Globe)

After the government's handling of Covid-19 in general, and the arts in particular last year, I think there was always an expectation that when theatre did come back, it was unlikely to have become any less critical of those in power. I'm not sure anyone would have guessed that a Globe production of Romeo & Juliet would be the first to really give it to them with both barrels; unless, of course, they'd seen a certain political photo opp featuring Michelle Terry in the background, glaring with the heat of a hundred suns. Ola Ince's production was one originally planned for the scrapped 2020 season, and was presumably always conceived as intensely political, but I wonder how much the last year sharpened its teeth. In a city where the ruler cracks down on violence to avoid having to look too deeply into its causes, Romeo (Startled Giraffe Alfred Enoch) and Juliet (Rebekah Murrell) fall in love, against the wishes of the rival gangs they both belong to.

Theatre review: As You Like It(Shakespeare's Globe & Tour)

Returning to the Globe and beyond for 2021 are Michelle Terry's version of the Tiny Touring Shows, which sees Brendan O'Hea direct the same small cast in three stripped-back Shakespeare plays. On tour, these mainly play as "Audience Choice," with the decision on which of the plays will be shown at any given performance left to a last-minute audience vote. Unusually, this year that choice includes one play that's also part of the main season, so presumably to avoid confusion with the Sean Holmes version still playing, A Midsummer Night's Dream can only be seen in London if and when it wins one of these votes. But the other two have as usual been given a few regularly scheduled dates at the Globe, and my first encounter with this year's touring ensemble is an enduring musical favourite that matches the productions' actor-musician aesthetic, As You Like It. Set mainly in a rather idyllic Forest of Arden, most of the characters are nobles and courtiers banished from court after a coup, who hang out in separate groups, sometimes in disguise, despite the fact that they're all either related or already knew each other and could have easily just reestablished their old dynamics.

Radio review: The Rival

The closing of the theatres for Covid has been compared many times to the Elizabethan closing of the theatres for plague, and I wouldn't be surprised if we get a few plays in the next few years explicitly making the connection and following Shakespeare in that time. But while Jude Cook's radio play The Rival does that, its inspiration is one that's been giving writers and academics food for thought for centuries, most recently in the Globe's hit Emilia: The story of Shakespeare's Sonnets, and the mysterious figures they're dedicated to. The poetry collection starts in workmanlike enough fashion, when Shakespeare (Elliot Barnes-Worrell) is hired by Lord Burghley (Philip Jackson) to write 17 sonnets meant to convince his wealthy ward to marry his granddaughter. They fail completely on that front but the Earl of Southampton, known as Wriothesley (Freddie Fox,) becomes Shakespeare's patron, and when the plague closes the theatres he returns to Wriothesley's home to write the long narrative poems Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece.