William Shakespeare

REVIEW: Hamlet, English Repertory Theatre ✭✭✭

Off West End, Reviews
English Repertory Theatre - Hamlet

There is no ghost, effectively no gravedigger scene, and the first two acts of the play have been telescoped so as to remove much of Hamlet’s delays and equivocations. Hamlet learns of his father’s murder by letter rather than a walk on the wilder side of the ramparts. What remains is a play of action rather than reflection, in effect a ‘Revenge Tragedy’, but one driven by adolescent angst and resentment of all forms of authority rather than by political or strategic calculations.

Simon Lipkin leads cast of As You Like It at Southwark Playhouse

Off West End
Simon Lipkin

Casting has just been announced for William Shakespeare’s As You Like It at Southwark Playhouse which is being staged to co-incide with the Bard’s 450th birthday. Simon Lipkin (Avenue Q, Rock of Ages, I Can’t Sing) will play Touchstone, Sally Scott (Sense and Sensibility, Watermill and Boeing Boeing) will play Rosalind, Steven Crossley (The Vertical Hour, Broadway, Measure for Measure, National Theatre and Complicite) will play Duke Frederick and Harry Livingstone (nominated for Best Newcomer at the Manchester Theatre Awards for The Glass Menagerie) playing Orlando lead the cast. They are joined by Richard Albrecht (Paddington Bear the Movie, My Child), Dominic Gerrard (Propeller’s The Comedy of Errors and A Midsummer Night’s Dream) and Kaisa Hammarlund (A Little Night Music , Cabaret and Sunday in the Park with George, Wyndham’s). All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players. A brilliant comedy about love, wrestling and … Read more

REVIEW: Julius Caesar, Globe Theatre ✭✭✭

Reviews
Julius Caesar review Globe Theatre

This is not a production where you sit and watch and the outcome is determined for you; no, it’s a production where your mood and the mood of those around you is a palpable part of the experience, and which hones and persuades you to certain points of view.

REVIEW: Being Shakespeare, Harold Pinter Theatre ✭✭✭✭

Reviews, West End
Being Shakespeare with Simon Callow

The set of Being Shakespeare, Simon Callow’s one-man exploration of the life of our most treasured playwright , appears very simple at first glance: a small raised wooden platform dotted with objects – a sword, a globe, a paper crown, piles of books and a model carousel adorned with sprites. To the right, four wooden chairs are stacked. It is onto this bare space that Callow ambles and begins to speak. Initially he seems merely to lecture us on the facts of Shakespeare’s life but quickly he transforms as he begins to act. Callow plays kings, mothers, boys, teenage lovers, Romans, friends and countrymen; moving seamlessly between them and, with the smallest changes, embodying each character. It is a virtuosic performance. Being Shakespeare is, however, more than a collection of his Greatest Hits. Callow, and the play’s author Johnathan Bate, take us through the seven ages of a single man … Read more