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The End Result
Today I submitted my MA dissertation. This is of particular interest to this blog as, as my longest serving readers will know, this blog only came about because of my dissertation. Let me take you back, if you will, to March 2006. As the RSC’s Complete Works Festival rolled up and I started choosing which productions…
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Returning actors: Richard Goulding and John Heffernan
One of the satisfying things about seeing the entire Complete Works has been the opportunity to see actors – often in the smaller parts- returning to the stage again and again, excelling in parts and coming to audience’s attentions. Rob Carroll is a good example- a bit player in the ‘Antony’/’Caesar’/’Tempest’ company, who got to…
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The Complete Works Festival: The Grand Overview
Here’s the thing I’ve been looking forward to writing for quite some time- a final overview of all the productions I’ve had the pleasure of seeing during the Complete Works. They’re given in order of how highly I rate them- enjoyment, quality of production, interpretation etc. all come into it, but mostly it’s just down…
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The Completed Works
So, that’s it! After a year of theatregoing, and even longer of planning and buying tickets, I’ve finished the Complete Works. I’ve seen all fifty-four main productions in the Festival, as well as a smattering of Fringe productions, talks, events and happenings. I’ve spent a great deal of money, moved house twice, had one relationship…
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King Lear (RSC) @ The Courtyard Theatre
I don’t wish to come across as unprofessional, but this is going to be a very difficult review to write. Last night I sat in the front row for Trevor Nunn’s ‘King Lear’, and I still don’t feel as if I’ve entirely recovered. It was theatre as I’ve rarely experienced it- theatre that reaches inside…
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The Merchant of Venice (Theatre for a New Audience) @ The Swan Theatre
The ‘lasts’ are coming thick and fast. Gregory Doran, according to reports from his creative team talk, was frustrated at the focus on the ‘lastness’ of his production, it being the final play to be performed in the RST before its closure. Tonight, there were three more lasts. The last visiting (and international) company, the last play…
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F. Murray Abraham talk @ The Swan Theatre
Firstly, I want to say that F. Murray Abraham is one of the nicest ‘famous’ people I’ve ever met. In a pre-event chat with my supervisor and an RSC events manager, he still insisted on bringing me into the conversation, asking me my opinions and generally welcoming me into a discussion I wasn’t even sure I was…
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As You Like It (Sheffield Theatres) @ The Swan Theatre
‘As You Like It’ is my least favourite Shakespeare play to watch. It’s interesting enough to read, and funny, but every production I’ve seen of it – the BBC film, the recent RSC production, the Christine Edzard film, even the half hour animated version – has left me bored. Having seen some negative reviews of the new production by…
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Twelfth Night (Cheek by Jowl) @ The Swan Theatre
Has it really been nine months since I last saw this production? When the Russian ensemble from the Chekov International Theatre Festival visited Warwick Arts Centre back in May 2006, I was only a few plays into the Complete Works Festival, and at the time it was one of the best things I’d ever seen.…
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Coriolanus (RSC) @ The Royal Shakespeare Theatre
This is the final play in Shakespeare’s canon that I had never seen a production of (well, unless you count ‘Edward III’- and I’ve still only seen ‘The Merchant Of Venice’ on film), meaning that it’s the final chance I had to come to a production completely fresh, knowing little more than the basic outline of…
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Dr Peter Kirwan 