Macbeth RSC’s The Other Place Playing until 6 December I thought when the RSC schedule came out that I would give this production a miss. I have seen too many Macbeths, most of them unconvincing or unlikely in some way, like Peter O’Toole knocking the set down and then playing the rest of the run for …
Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde Attic Theatre Playing until 2 November It’s always a delight to see Tread the Boards’ Hallowe’en play but I thought before I went that the adaptation into a play text from Robert Louis Stephenson’s 1886 novella was going to be a real challenge because the strength of that work lies more in the description …
Cyrano de Bergerac Swan Theatre Playing until 15 November Cyrano de Bergerac is a French 1897 verse drama in five acts by Edmond Rostand. The RSC’s version is an adaptation by director Simon Evans and Debris Stephenson. The play is about the life of the poet and soldier Cyrano whose diffidence in love is the main thrust of …
Measure for Measure Royal Shakespeare Theatre Playing until 25 October 2025 The last production of Measure for Measure which I saw was at Shakespeare’s Globe, a production which heightened the importance and presence of sexual licence in Vienna by placing two quasi brothels in among the groundlings, so that they became the citizens of Vienna, …
Little Women The Attic Theatre Playing until 28 September Louisa May Alcott’s semi-autobiographical 1868-9 novel seems to have stood the test of time by maintaining its popularity. The story of the coming of age of the four March sisters means that there is a great deal of plot and to adapt it to a play …
4.48 Psychosis The Other Place Playing until 27 July This mesmerising play makes for compelling viewing. The RSC’s production has three actors and plays for 70 minutes without an interval, as did the original at the Royal Court in June 2000, the year after playwright Sarah Kane died from suicide at the age of twenty-eight. …
The Winter’s Tale Royal Shakespeare Theatre Playing until 30 August I think it’s always a mistake when you can only grasp some of what’s going on by reading the footnotes. It’s as if the work of art can’t work on its own. In this case some of what was happening escaped me while I was …
Henry V The Attic Theatre Playing until 27 April A production of Shakespeare’s Henry V a play with 43 named characters as well as ‘Lords, Ladies, Officers, Soldiers, Messengers, Attendants’ at The Attic sounds like an impossibility. It calls for several locations and battle scenes. Surely not. And yet John-Robert Partridge’s production includes them all …
Edward II The Swan Theatre Playing until 5 April The RSC has two great plays and two exciting productions of them playing at the same time in the Royal Shakespeare Theatre and The Swan. Both Hamlet and Marlowe’s Edward II are as interesting as we have seen for a while at the RSC and both …
Hamlet Royal Shakespeare Theatre Playing until 29 March This is an extraordinary production. However many times you might have seen Hamlet I doubt whether you will have seen a Hamlet like it before. Perhaps the most striking thing about it is the design. Set on a huge tilting stage it soon becomes apparent that it’s …