Writer: William Shakespeare
Director: Toby Gordon
With a one-two-three-four, the cast of The Taming of the Shrew break into an upbeat rendition of Saturday Night at the Movies, complete with live saxophone, guitars and guiro. The lyrics are slightly tweaked to ask, with big grins: “Who cares what Shakespeare you see / when you’re drinking your rosé in the back row…” It’s the first of the show’s half-dozen high-octane numbers from the fifties and sixties.
Shakespeare in the Squares has been performing accessible, enjoyable theatre in gardens across London for nearly a decade now, and their 2025 season is another triumph. Inspo for the costumes, beautifully designed by Emily Stuart, is drawn from the same era as the music: colourful, accessorised suits, quiffs and beehives, a layered swing skirt for sweet Bianca, pedal pushers for her intractable older sister, and a straight-cut suit for their powerful mother.
That Katherina and Bianca’s rich father Baptista Minola has become their mother in this version, played with great authority by Elizabeth Marsh, is part of a subtle rebalancing of the play’s infamous gender wars. The action begins as she insists that her “shrewish” older daughter must marry before the more pliable younger one. Director Toby Gordon has pulled off something of a miracle in creating a Shrew that is neither dark and misogynistic nor, by some contrarian logic, really all about girl power. Instead, a thoughtful interpretation of the play produces a celebration of love and the playful complexity of some strong relationships. The “mad marriage” between these two characters prefigures Shakespeare’s later “merry war” between Benedick and Beatrice, an explosive meeting of quick, quixotic minds.
This Kate (a fabulously changeable Sasha Wilson) is partly surly because she’s defensive. “No mates for you, / Unless you were of gentler, milder mold,” Hortensio (Lee Drage) tells her cuttingly. She genuinely falls for Petruchio, played with no-nonsense northern charm by Roddy Lynch, and mostly enjoys his games, matching his eccentricity and stubbornness with her own. Every pun and double entendre is amped up (Petruchio promises “my tongue in your tail” and earns a slap), and the sleepless nights Kate endures once she marries Petruchio are, in this reading, due to conjugal bliss. There are hints of a Fifty-Shades-style erotic thrill in their private powerplay.
Every member of the versatile, talented, eight-strong cast can sing, dance, act, play musical instruments and convey four-centuries-old language with freshness and clarity. Kalifa Taylor, who was Helena in last year’s Shakespeare in the Squares’ production of All’s Well, is outstanding again as the resourceful servant Tranio. She upholds with humour and poise a tradition that runs from commedia dell’arte through Jeeves and Wooster. Putting on shades and her master’s powder blue sweater vest, she is transformed into a more sophisticated version of the real Lucentio, played by a brilliantly daft and seductive Paddy Duff, flirting outrageously with the audience.
Duff is involved in the clown-style wedding breakfast dumbshow, set in a red-and-white fifties diner, which opens the second half. It’s a fun interlude, all audience participation and whistles, in an entertaining show. The other characters in the Shrew’s light-hearted subplot also draw on pantomime and slapstick. There are guitars broken over heads and stolen kisses behind a book on The Art of Love. Nikita Johal as Bianca entertainingly conveys the manipulative rivalry in a dynamic that keeps tilting against the less-favoured older sibling. John Holt-Roberts, who plays Bianca’s third suitor, Gremio, is funny in all three ensemble roles, but especially as a merry widow in full-skirted black velvet.
The original play’s framing device, involving a drunken tinker, has been abandoned (as it often is) in the interests of a pacier performance, leaving room for the silliness and songs. Music director Annemarie Lewis Thomas has produced some inspired arrangements. There’s a great mashup of Stupid Cupid and All Shook Up after Kate and Petruchio’s first meeting and a perfectly judged rendition of Perhaps, Perhaps, Perhaps a little later. But the production also keeps faith with Shakespeare’s original text, directed to make the narrative clear and the humour funny. As usual, the only set is a simple archway with the trees colourfully lit in the second half. The background sounds of rustling leaves and birdsong add to the charm of an outdoor performance.
How do you like “these quick-witted folks?” Baptista asks as the characters energetically banter their way towards the much-debated ending. It’s directed, like the rest of the play, with a light touch and a sure-footedness that draws on a sound and serious consideration of every word and nuance. It takes a lot of hard work to make one of Shakespeare’s more challenging plays look this effortless and full of fun.
Reviewed on 11 June 2025 and continues to tour
