Experience: 7/10
By William Shakespeare
Directed by Kimberley Sykes
Venue: RST
Date: Thursday 28th February 2019
A good start to the new season. I have been concerned about some of the recent RSC ensembles, but this appears to be a strong group, with the diversity angle not weakening the acting talent at all and adding some interesting aspects to the performance. I’m looking forward to seeing how this ensemble develops over several productions.
Experience: 8/10
By William Shakespeare
Directed by Mike Tweddle
Venue: Tobacco Factory
Date: Wednesday 27th February 2019
One advantage of having to wait outside the theatre for our ride back to the hotel was that it gave us a chance to speak to a couple of the actors – Danaan McAleer and Evlyne Oyedokun – to congratulate them and thank them for such an imaginative and inspiring production. I was especially pleased because the audience numbers tonight were on the low side. This innovative, cross-gender casting version of the play deserves full houses every night, and we’re happy to have already booked for another helping of the fun.
Experience: 7/10
By William Wycherley
Directed by Jonathan Munby
Venue: Chichester Festival Theatre
Date: Friday 6th July 2018
As expected, this had improved with time. The cast were smoother in all aspects of the performance, the dialogue was clearer (or seemed so to us second time around) and one or two of the earlier difficulties had been resolved, at least in part. There was no change to the staging as far as I could see, though of course we spotted more details this time, especially sitting left of centre instead of on the right, as last time. It still didn’t sparkle, and we both felt that the design had to take a lot of the blame for that – the dark, black and white colour scheme simply brought the whole play down.
Experience: 6/10
By William Wycherley
Directed by Jonathan Munby
Venue: Chichester Festival Theatre
Date: Tuesday 12th June 2018
We found this performance rather patchy: some scenes worked better than others but although the characters were more clearly identified than in some productions we’ve seen, much of the humour fell a bit flat. It’s still in preview, so the performances will undoubtedly come on, and as we’re seeing it again in a few weeks, we expect to get more out of it then.
Experience: 6/10
By Noel Coward
Directed by Sean Foley
Venue: Chichester Festival Theatre
Date: Friday 11th May 2018
This was a disappointing start to the CFT season. Steve and I have enjoyed Sean Foley’s productions before, particularly A Mad World My Masters, while Rufus Hound’s performance as Sancho Panza in the RSC’s recent Don Quixote was simply superb. Sadly, in combination with the writing talent of Noel Coward, the whole became much less than the sum of its parts. Sean’s reliance on visual gags and physical clowning to get the ‘jokes’ across indicated that he either wasn’t aware of Coward’s wit or didn’t know how to direct it properly, and while Rufus can connect really well with an audience, he seemed to be struggling with some of the dialogue: the brilliant line “I’m so terribly terribly sorry, it’s a wrong number” generated nothing in the way of a response. (It’s usually the funniest line of the show, in our experience.)
Experience: 9/10
By Andrew Hilton and Dominic Power, after Moliere
Directed by Andrew Hilton
Company: Shakespeare at the Tobacco Factory
Venue: Tobacco Factory
Date: Wednesday 3rd May 2017
As expected, this had come on a lot since our first viewing. The dialogue was crisper, we had the advantage of having seen it once before, and these factors, coupled with a much more responsive audience, made for a very entertaining evening. It’s a shame so few people will get to see this, but at least we are among the happy few.
Experience: 8/10
By Andrew Hilton and Dominic Power, after Molière
Company: Shakespeare at the Tobacco Factory
Directed by Andrew Hilton
Venue: Tobacco Factory
Date: Tuesday 11th April 2017
I was aware that this was an adapted version of Tartuffe, but I wasn’t sure what to expect. As it turned out, this was one of the best versions we’ve seen of this play, second only to the RSC’s 1983 production with Nigel Hawthorne, Alison Steadman, Anthony Sher and David Bradley, amongst others. In this adaptation, the story has been updated to the present day, allowing for topical references, and it all worked brilliantly within a political setting. The characters were also wonderfully updated, and although the comedy took a while to get going – the audience were a bit slow to warm up tonight – there was plenty to laugh at in the later acts.
Experience: 9/10
By William Shakespeare (slightly adapted)
Directed by Barry Rutter
Company: Northern Broadsides
Venue: Yvonne Arnaud
Date: Wednesday 11th May 2016
We like Northern Broadsides’ no-nonsense approach to Shakespeare’s texts, so we weren’t bothered to find that this version of Merry Wives was no longer set in Windsor, but had been relocated to a country club a few miles outside Harrogate (information courtesy of a post-show chat with the cast). The costumes located the play in the 1920s (with some variations) and the set created a stylish yet simple space for all of the action, with little need to trundle lots of furniture on and off. There was a replica of a 1920s treadmill and three lovely examples of period bicycles, including a tandem, to add to the fun, and the few alterations to the text included the “old woman of Ilkley”, a perfectly acceptable substitution. Apart from that, the dialogue was as expected, and the performance fairly zinged along, with some lovely business to keep us entertained. A shame there were so few of us to enjoy the fun – the auditorium was about a third full – but hopefully they will get better attendances later in the week.
Experience: 10/10
By William Shakespeare, adapted by Dominic Power
Directed by Andrew Hilton
Company: STF and TFT
Venue: Tobacco Factory
Date: Wednesday 13th April 2016
Tonight we sat directly opposite our previous seats, which not only gave us a great view of tonight’s performance, but also a completely different perspective. The cast had made good use of the extra practice, and all the performances had developed nicely; although there were still a few fluffs, nothing detracted from the marvellous energy and pace with which they drove this story along, and there were some lovely extra details here and there. Sadly, the house was not full, so clearly word has not yet got out about how wonderful this production is. I’m tempted to ask my maestro of the scheduling (aka Steve) to see if we can squeeze in another viewing during the tour, but one look at my diary – we have a LOT coming up – suggests that won’t be possible. Catch it if you can.
Experience: 9/10
By William Shakespeare (with a little help from Dominic Power)
Directed by Andrew Hilton
Company: Shakespeare at the Tobacco Factory (STF) and Tobacco Factory Theatres (TFT)
Venue: Tobacco Factory
Date: Thursday 31st March 2016
This production was a revelation: we were completely enthralled by this adapted version of one of Will’s ‘troublesome’ plays. As it was the first night, the cast were a little tense to begin with, but after some strong laughs in the first half, they relaxed into it, and the rest of the performance was noticeably more confident. There’s still some improvement in it even so; a few lines were fluffed tonight, but that’s to be expected, and one or two of the scene changes are likely to speed up with practice, but nothing detracted from this superb interpretation of this less-performed play.
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