Much Ado About Nothing, directed by Mark Rylance. The Old Vic, London, September 2013. As we entered the Old Vic for Mark Rylance’s production of Much Ado About Nothing, songs of the 1940s played over the loudspeakers; the programme (which included much propaganda for the Shakespeare-didn’t-write-Shakespeare cause) claimed that the Second World War setting ‘serves […]
This post is part of Year of Shakespeare, a project documenting the World Shakespeare Festival, the greatest celebration of Shakespeare the world has ever seen. For me, the grand climax of the Year of Shakespeare came with a revival at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, of Elijah Moshinsky’s production of Verdi’s Otello which was first […]
The world of Shakespeare is coming to England during this Olympic year with a whole string of remarkable productions, many of them taking off from a Shakespeare play rather than offering a straightforward, text-based account of it. But that doesn’t mean that there isn’t still a world of Shakespeare elsewhere. From 10 to 15 July […]
‘The isle is full of noises….’ Well, it certainly will be as the Olympic Games open with a ceremony that takes as its keynote these words from The Tempest. One of the noises will be the resonant sound of the great bell, the biggest in Europe – twice the size of Big Ben – which […]
A few years ago I saw and admired Kevin Spacey playing Richard II at the Old Vic, in a production directed by Trevor Nunn. Now, also at the Old Vic, I’ve seen him as Richard III, expertly directed by Sam Mendes. They were both fine performances, highly individual while showing great respect for the text. […]
The editors of The Stage newspaper have asked me to write a piece commemorating fifty years of the RSC. This has made me delve into memories of more than half a century’s Stratford theatre-going. I came here first for a short holiday in 1954, when I saw four plays. My main memories are of Barbara […]
