LOVE'S LABOURS LOST

LOVE'S LABOURS LOST

Royal Shakespeare Company at the RSC Theatre, Stratford on Avon

07.03.15

You may see a better acted, more entertaining Love's Labours, but surely not a more stylish one. The concept here – Edwardian England, a great country house, basking in the sun on the brink of war.

The house is Charlecote Park, scene of Shakespeare's youthful poaching, allegedly. It's also used for the RSC's companion piece, Love's Labours Won [Much Ado to you and me], set after the war, with Charlecote now a hospital for the wounded …

Christopher Luscombe's light-hearted production is full of delightful details. The “mad-cap lord” Berowne [Edward Bennett] begins his “three years fast” in the comfortably appointed library; it ends, prematurely, in mutual defeat up on the leads, Brideshead-fashion, in a brilliantly conceived scene. A strong cast, including Michelle Terry as a teasing Rosaline, and John Hodgkinson's Don Armado, at first Wilde-ly melancholic, then at the grand piano joining Peter McGovern's perky Moth in a bizarre duet So Well I Love Thee.

The Great War is just visible on the horizon – there are poppies by the fence, their petals raining down on Mars and Hector. This in the Nine Worthies sequence, ingeniously done by the “Navarre Players” as pastiche G&S.

THE CHRISTMAS TRUCE

THE CHRISTMAS TRUCE

RSC at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford

29.11.2014

Straw bales, actors mingling with the audience, bunting and kitbags, VADs in the onstage band.

We start with that old cliché, the glorious summer of 1914, with cricket on the village green. But Phil Porter's wonderful family play, directed faultlessly by Erica Whyman, moves swiftly from pastoral to warfare – the cricketing metaphor, with the great scorer stage left, is well sustained both physically and dramatically.

At the heart of the drama is Bruce Bairnsfather. His wry cartoon sketches of life at the front are iconic – it's less well known that he was a local lad, working at the Shakespeare Theatre as a sparks for a time. Joseph Kloska makes him a quietly strong character, holding the show together with his love of “songs, sketches, boys dressing up ...”

An impressive ensemble plays the soldiers – on both sides of No Man's Land – as well as the nurses who provide some conflict of their own, rebelling against the harsh, old-fashioned matron.

We've seen a lot of the Great War on stage this year. This warm-hearted play pulls no punches about the grim reality, but still manages to be a hugely enjoyable seasonal treat.

THE WHITE DEVIL

THE WHITE DEVIL

RSC at the Swan, Stratford

29.11.2014

Whatever would Webster think ?

If he were writing now, would he be Tarantino or Orton ?

His violent revenge tragedy is dragged by director Maria Aberg into the 1970s, with disco dancing and a general air of unstylish loucheness for the “horror upon horror”.

This is part of the Roaring Girls season, so the most interesting character, Flaminio, is now female [Laura Elphinstone], somewhat overshadowing Kirsty Bushell's strong Vittoria, and generally behaving as if she were the White Devil of the title.

Good work from David Rintoul, by far the best verse speaker in a very mixed bunch, in a natty red blazer as the Cardinal.

Video, dance, pumping music, the cult of celebrity, give the show a very modern feel, somewhat at odds with the misogyny in the text, especially the reaction to adultery.

All of us who booked were sent a letter warning of the shocking immediacy consequent on the contemporary setting. Didn't come across in the event, in a confusing, ultimately unsatisfying production.