Tag Archives: RSC

Othello – July 2015

Experience: 5/10

By William Shakespeare

Directed by Iqbal Khan

Venue: RST

Date: Friday 24th July 2015

This was a strange experience. Both Steve and I rated one performance considerably higher than the production as a whole, and that doesn’t happen often. Despite this, or perhaps because of it, we’re looking forward to our second viewing as we’ve often found in the past that once we’ve adjusted to the way a production is being done, we can get a lot more out of a return visit, not to mention the possibility of improvements happening over time.

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Volpone – July 2015

Experience: 8/10

By Ben Jonson, with script revisions by Ranjit Bolt

Directed by Trevor Nunn

Venue: Swan Theatre

Date: Thursday 23rd July 2015

This fantastic production was a joy to watch. There was so much going on that I couldn’t take it all in first time around, so I’m already looking forward to our next viewing which will be tomorrow’s understudy run. The performances were all excellent, and apart from a couple of the accents being a little harder to tune into than the others, the dialogue was crystal clear, including some modern additions.

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The Merchant Of Venice – May 2015

Experience: 6/10

By William Shakespeare

Directed by Polly Findlay

Venue: RST

Date: Tuesday 26th May 2015

This has only just been reviewed by the papers, so it’s still early in its run; hopefully it will come on from this shaky and rather uninspiring start. The production style included a fair amount of gimmicks – a swinging pendulum, mirrors at the back and on the floor, lots of candles – which often proved to be a distraction, and with very little detail in most of the performances I found I couldn’t care about these characters at all. The script had been heavily edited but the story was pretty clear; it’s just that their way of telling it didn’t engage me or give me any insight into the play. It’s possible that the inkblot style had been deliberately extended to the characterisations as well, supposedly allowing us to make our own minds up; although some people prefer that style of production, I generally find it unhelpful. Having said all this, we enjoyed ourselves enough to rate the performance at 6/10, so there’s the possibility of improvement on further viewing.

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Oppenheimer – January 2015

Experience: 8/10

By Tom Morton-Smith

Directed by Angus Jackson

Venue: Swan Theatre

Date: Tuesday 20th January 2015

Wow. We didn’t have high expectations for this play, despite it being in the Swan and starring John Heffernan (one of our favourite actors) as Oppenheimer himself. We were prepared for it to be a bit dry, a bit too technical, perhaps even – dare I say it? – a bit boring, but the whole thing was an amazing piece of theatre, with music, jokes and lots of interesting information as well as lively debates. And yes, the horrific effects of the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were brought out in a very effective and moving way. Given that this was a preview, I’d expect the performances to come on even more, and now that we know who is who in the story, our second viewing should bring out much more detail. Time will tell.

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The Christmas Truce – January 2015

Experience: 9/10

By Phil Porter

Directed by Erica Whyman

Venue: RST

Date: Thursday 15th January 2015

We enjoyed this production so much when we saw it before Christmas last year that we decided to fit in another viewing, so here we are. Again we sat in the centre front stalls, the same seats as for the understudy run, so no complaints about our view. One young lad did a ‘wiggle’ dance to celebrate his success at the coconut shy, but otherwise the standard was pretty poor – Chris had to use his foot on one occasion or we’d have still been sitting there now waiting for the start!

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The Christmas Truce – December 2015 (2)

Experience: 9/10

Understudy performance

By Phil Porter

Directed by Jane Moriarty

Venue: RST

Date: Friday 19th December 2014

This was even more enjoyable than yesterday’s performance. We were siting centrally in the front stalls, and had a great view of the action, plus, as it was the understudy run, we had the added benefit of the atmosphere that creates. We came earlier as well, though as it turns out we didn’t miss much yesterday, as the fun only started about fifteen minutes beforehand.

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The Christmas Truce – December 2014

Experience: 8/10

By Phil Porter

Directed by Erica Whyman

Venue: RST

Date: Thursday 18th December 2014

We were in a bit of a rush getting to this performance; slow service at the restaurant meant we took our seats just after 7 p.m., and since there was pre-show entertainment, we will be sure to get in earlier next time. The village fete was already under way, with a couple of the cast on stage in Edwardian costume, bringing young children up from the audience to have a go at the coconut shy. There was applause when they succeeded – even when Chris Nayak helped out one young lad by knocking the coconut stand over – and Steve spotted that the youngsters were given something by the lady before they left the stage, possibly a voucher for an ice cream?

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Love’s Labour’s Won – October 2014

Experience: 9/10

aka Much Ado About Nothing

By William Shakespeare

Directed by Christopher Luscombe

Venue: RST

Date: Wednesday 29th October 2014

Brilliant. We’d heard from one or two sources that this version of Much Ado had been altered to make it fit into the Love’s Labour’s Lost mould, and that it was less enjoyable as a result. Not a bit of it. We realised early on that the impact of the Great War was being completely ignored, and that the play’s lightness and jollity were intact, even if the text had been well trimmed. The set was basically the same, although there were some different locations, and with the passing of four years, the style of the costumes had altered to fit.

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The Witch Of Edmonton – October 2014

Experience: 7/10

By William Rowley, Thomas Dekker, John Ford, and possibly others.

Edited and directed by Gregory Doran

Venue: Swan Theatre

Date: Tuesday 28th October 2014

We missed the RSC’s previous Witch as we weren’t coming regularly to Stratford at the time, so this production was one we were very keen to see. This final part of the Roaring Girls season – Greg was accepted as an honorary ‘Roaring Girl’ by the other (female) directors – was the only one to be done in Jacobean dress, which made a pleasant change from the persistent updating in the other three productions. Modern dress or similar is fine, but we agreed with Greg’s point in the pre-show talk about the risk of not allowing the audience to make their own connections to present-day circumstances, something clearly not considered often enough by many directors today.

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Love’s Labour’s Lost Understudies – October 2014

Experience: 8/10

By William Shakespeare

Directed by Guy Unsworth

Company: RSC Understudies

Venue: RST

Date: Friday 24th October 2014

Our seats were much better for this performance – plum in the middle of the front stalls. Our view was excellent, and with the extra fun generated by the constraints of the Understudy run, this was a wonderful afternoon in the theatre. Nothing much to add to the lengthy description of the set in my previous notes, except that I spotted a telescope on a stand in the library, near the door back right. I also noticed a piece of paper attached to the wall beside the right tower door, and assumed it was the proclamation mentioned in the play. It disappeared later – didn’t see it being removed.

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