I felt that I was privileged to be able to attend the premiere of the Illuminations/BBC TV film version of Greg Doran’s RSC Hamlet at the BFI (British Film Institute). This blog is about the experience of being there at the screening, and I’ll wait until after the Boxing Day, when it is aired on…
Outside in the town of Stratford it was raining every day. Inside, the Courtyard Theatre, there is a promise of sunshine as the sun streams through the doors and windows across a dimmed stage and auditorium. The play will commence in the dusky light of the moment when the day begins to turn to night and will…
Read more Twelfth Night (The Courtyard Theatre, w/c 9th November 2009)
Outside Waterstone’s in Newcastle, young women wearing clothes with flashes of pink, are queuing to see Katie Price signing copies of her new novel. The former glamour model, who is also known as Jordan, experiments with different identities, and she could be described as an independent woman making it on her own in the savage and brutal world of a celebrity-focused culture. About 100 yards away from…
Read more As You Like It (Theatre Royal Newcastle, 24th October 2009)
The image of the DVD cover for the production of The RSC’s Hamlet has now been released. I’m sure that this will provoke lots of conversations about what the film will be like. When I first saw the cover, I must admit I was a little disappointed I had thought that the image would have…
When the audience enters the auditorium at the Courtyard Theatre, they are faced with Romulus and Remus savagely attacking and fighting with each other. The young men, who were brought up by wolves, are wearing loin clothes covered in mud and blood, snarl, hiss and growl at each other clamouring across the whole of the trust stage space. There is a statue of…
Read more Julius Caesar (The Courtyard Theatre, 11th August 2009)
What is it like seeing a production as it has started to bed down and well into its run. I’ve seen the RSC’s As You Like It five times now. Once very early in its run in May and then in July when Mariah Gale was playing Rosalind. I think the production has matured, just as I…
Read more Katy Stephens' hair: As You Like It (The Courtyard Theatre, 12th August 2009)
This is becoming the As You Like It summer. I’ve already blogged about the Curve production, RSC production, and the Globe production, but felt that I had make mention of the RSC one again after seeing Mariah Gale go on as understudy for Rosalind. On this occasion, there were no press releases or reports of…
It is now official. The RSC production of Hamlet is to be filmed by the BBC and shown later this year on BBC 2. There had been a petition calling for the filming of the RSC’s 2008 production. The petition has reached nearly 8,000 signatures showing that the audience can have some influence on decisions.…
On the cover of the programme for current RSC production of The Winter’s Tale , Greg Hicks (Leontes) stands in the middle of a winter landscape and glances down at an ‘old master’ painting depicting an idyllic classical landscape. The programme image suggests the pastoral world as an alternative to the world that Leontes inhabits.…
Read more The Winter's Tale and As You Like It (RSC 7th, 8th and 9th May 2009)
Michael Boyd interview: transforming the RSC – Telegraph
Read more Michael Boyd interview: transforming the RSC – Telegraph
Julie Raby: A Dyslexic Writer 