Tag Archives: William Shakespeare

Music and Lyrics: Max Martin et al. Book: David West Read Director: Luke Sheppard Reviewer: Richard Maguire A new musical that updates Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet to the music of Britney Spears and The Backstreet Boys doesn’t bode well, and many a reviewer must have travelled to the Shaftesbury Theatre with a heavy heart and a pen full of pithy ...

Writer: William Shakespeare Director: Gregory Doran Reviewer: Richard Maguire Shakespeare’s problem play gets a 1900’s update in Gregory Doran’s production for the RSC now playing in rep at The Barbican. But placing Measure For Measure in Austria at the height of the Vienna Secession Movement does little to solve – or further complicate – the issues in this tale of ...

Writer: William Shakespeare Director: Justin Audibert Reviewer: Stephen Bates Some plays struggle to stand the test of time. In the not so distant past, The Taming of the Shrew could be seen almost constantly, almost everywhere, but now it has been eclipsed by the much tamer Much Ado About Nothing as the Shakespearean romcom of choice. …Shrew may now be ...

Writer: William Shakespeare Director: Kimberley Sykes Reviewer: Scott Matthewman All the world’s a stage, we hear from As You Like It’s most famous soliloquy. And so, muses Kimberley Sykes’ production for the RSC, is the Forest of Arden. Once action moves away from Duke Frederick’s court, the house lights come up and the theatre becomes the forest, the audience the ...

Writer: William Shakespeare Director: Gregory Doran Reviewer: Sam Lowe Measure for Measure is an interesting case study for a Shakespeare play. It’s known for not really fitting agreeably into either genre box of comedy (meaning it possesses a happy ending) or tragedy. Shakespeare’s plays can be divided into the following: Tragedy, History, or Comedy. Some academics have even referred to ...

Writer: William Shakespeare Director: Eleanor Rhode Reviewer: Katie Burchett Neon lights, foam hands and political sparring in a boxing ring; Eleanor Rhode brings Shakespeare’s unsung King John to the Swan Theatre in an explosion of visual splendour. It is a rare thing to go into a Shakespeare play with no preconceived ideas of how it’ll be done, but from the ...

Writer: William Shakespeare Director: Kimberley Sykes Reviewer: Dave Cunningham Director Kimberley Sykes uses the current production of As You Like It to examine whether, as is opined in the play, the world really is a stage.  The show opens in what might be considered the traditional manner- a bleak monochrome court from which the increasingly paranoid Duke has banished many ...

Writer: William Shakespeare Director: Christopher Haydon Reviewer: May Mellstrom Shakespeare’s murderous tale of power, greed and ambition is reinvented in Christopher Haydon’s Macbeth, notable for the casting of a woman in the title role and therefore offering a fresh perspective on an oft-performed play.  With war raging it is Lucy Ellinson’s Macbeth who emerges victorious from the battleground; hailed as ...