Writer: William Shakespeare
Director: Indiana Lown-Collins
Love’s Labour’s Lost is a paean to the complexities of language and poetry, but here, at The Globe, Shakespeare’s rarely performed comedy is envisioned as a fiesta. And why not? The plot is simple, and the Spanish setting invites some exciting flamenco dancing.
But Director Indiana Lown-Collins’s focus on stamping heels and gathered skirts means that the bard’s intricate wordplay is pushed to the side, most patently in the famous scene when the King and his three sex-starved students write verse to their paramours. There’s some great knockabout comedy, very much in the vein of Much Ado About Nothing, as the four men tumble around the stage, eavesdropping on each other. However, their poetry is rendered into songs accompanied by a flamenco band and a clapping audience, and so the words are mostly unintelligible. It’s a crowd-pleasing scene for sure, but Shakespeare’s emphasis on language and rhetoric is lost.
Some of the dialogue about semantics between Armado and his page, Moth, has been cut, but even what remains is difficult to catch as Andro Crespo and Jax Guerrero speak rapidly in thick Spanish accents. The other linguistic pedant in the play, Holofernes, is reimagined as an enthusiastic holidaymaker, with an I Love Navarre-emblazoned tote bag. Katy Stephens is brilliantly funny in this gender-swapped role, stooping around like Julie Walters’ Mrs Overall. However, most verbal jokes are replaced by visual ones.
Ned Costello is the young King who persuades his lords to sign a document that they will study and fast for three years, all the while eschewing female company. He’s a harmless king, not the brightest despite his insistence that they will study. It is a little bit of a shock to see Costello break out in camp rage when the King’s own devotions to the Princess are discovered. More memorable is Philip Arditti as the contrary Perowne. As confident as his character, Arditti’s voice finds every corner of the Globe. Other voices tend to go adrift, especially when they are at the back of the stage.
Having no problem being heard are Joshua Hill as the rough Cockney Costard and Daniel Crossley doubling up as Constable Dull and Boyet, the chaperon of the visiting Princess and her retinue. Norah Lopez Holden, as the Princess, grows in her role, although her highlight of the evening is her wonderfully choreographed dramatic bullfight, which replaces the deer-hunting sequence in the original. Taking place on a dais in the middle of the groundlings, Carmen Igarza’s choreography is full of tension, pain, and, finally, blood.
If the story of Love’s Labour’s Lost is straightforward – that men enjoy the chase while women have more to lose by flirting – the costumes are dazzling, perhaps enough to make one forgive the relentlessly chipper tone of the evening. Designer Katie Lias has gone full-out, with dashing purple and yellow for the musicians, some very tight white trousers for the King and his pals, a crimson velvet jumpsuit for the Princess and some traditional gowns for her retinue.
Even more spectacular and surprising are the outfits and outsized heads that appear in the Nine Worthies ball towards the end of the play, featuring one famous person who certainly wouldn’t have been there when Elizabeth I was in the audience in the mid-1590s. And with some sexy Russian costumes, featuring gold codpieces, the second half of the show ventures towards chaos in spite of the loose reins in the hands of Lown-Collins.
This version of Love’s Labour’s Lost is certainly the craziest production at the Globe for a long time. However, it makes one yearn for the darkness of Hamlet, or another of Will’s tragedies.
Runs until 13 September 2026
