The post contains spoilers, so if you haven’t seen this production yet and don’t want to know about some of the production’s surprises, then it is best not to read this post. Having seen this production again in Stratford after the Previews had taken place and then at the Barbican, I have had more time…
Read more ‘…all hail!’ to me? So Judas did to Christ..’ (Revisiting Richard II, RST and Barbican, October 27th to Wednesday 8th January 2014).
The Summer RST Company have left, and the barriers have appeared around the stage door. Tweeters twitter about how wonderful David Tennant’s performance is. It’s an ‘enthralling performance’, ‘just extraordinary’ and ‘mesmerising’ they say. Richard II enters the stage and is at the centre of his court with his flatters whispering in his ear. The casting of David Tennant…
Read more Richard II (RST, Preview performances 10th, 11th, 12th October 2013)
At a Press Conference in London today, the Royal Shakespeare Company announced its five-year strategy and its Winter 2013 season. The headline announcement was that David Tennant will return to the RSC to play Richard II in their 2013 Winter Season. The news, though exciting to hear officially, had been circulating for some time. Richard II will be a short six-week run in Stratford from…
Read more David Tennant returns to the RSC to play Richard II
In 2011, the sublime was a popular topic of discussion. At the National Theatre there was Frankenstein and in the John Martin exhibition at the Tate, the sublime was on show in a spectacular way. The John Martin exhibition was my favourite exhibition of the year. The epic was presented on grand canvases, but what…
Read more 2011
Here is my best of.. lists. The following post discusses what I thought about the year. Shakespeare in the Theatre 1. Romeo and Juliet (RSC at the RST) 2. Much Ado About Nothing (Globe) 3. Hamlet (The National Theatre) 4. Much Ado About Nothing (Wyndham’s) 5.The Comedy of Errors (Propeller at Sheffield) 6. Antony and Cleopatra with Katy Stephens and Darrell D’Silva (RSC…
Read more Best of 2011
It’s a little ironic that down the road from the Wyndham’s Theatre in the National Portrait Gallery’s Now and Then: Portraits by John Swannell exhibition is a portrait of a young George Michael in his Wham days looking extremely handsome and tanned. This image is very in keeping with the aesthetic of the eighties focused and…
Read more Much Ado About Nothing (aka Club Tropicana Much A Dr Who About Nothing) Wyndham’s Theatre – 16th May to 3rd September
I have decided to blog about the first night of the Tate/Tennant Much Ado About Nothing (Wyndhams) experience and in doing so this blog post will include SPOILERS. I don’t normally blog about a production early in the run, but I felt there was something rather fascinating about being at a first night in the same way there…
Read more Much Ado About Nothing – First Night at Wyndham’s (May 16th 2011)
Theatre: Shakespeare 1. Romeo and Juliet (RSC). 2. King Lear (RSC). 3. As You Like It (West Yorkshire Playhouse). 4. Measure for Measure (Almeida). 5. The Winter’s Tale (RSC/Roundhouse). 6. Henry IV part 2 (Globe). 7. Macbeth (Globe). 8. Antony and Cleopatra (RSC). 9. Antony and Cleopatra (Liverpool Playhouse). 10. Hamlet (The Crucible, Sheffield). 11.…
Read more Best of 2010
The outsider seemed to be dominating the theatre in the performances that I have seen over the last few weeks. I had listened to David Hare’s radio play Murder in Samarkand on iPlayer, and following this saw several theatre productions which had the outsider as an ongoing theme. Murder in Samarkand told the story of Craig Murray (played by David Tennant), who…
Read more Andersen’s English (Out of Joint at West Yorkshire Playhouse), Jerusalem (Apollo Theatre), An Enemy of the People (Sheffield Crucible), Beating Berlusconi (York Theatre Royal), Murder in Samarkand (BBC Radio 4) w/c 22nd February 2010
In the Doctor Who two parter, ‘The End of Time’, the time is clearly ‘out of joint’ for the Doctor. He has been having fun instead of being there to sort out the Master’s usurpation of the human race. In trying to set this right, the tenth Doctor hurtles towards his own death. Does this remind us of the…
Read more Hamlet (BBC2, 26th December 2009).