-
Trust Me, I’m a Doctor!; or Faites-Mois Confiance, Je suits Médecin!: Extracts (Edward’s Boys) @ The Shakespeare Institute
Edward’s Boys get to do the most fun stuff. Some fourteen years (the time it takes to pass through secondary school twice) since the company based at King Edward VI School started bringing productions of familiar and obscure early modern plays to a wider audience, they (under the stalwart leadership of Perry Mills) are now…
-
Volpone (Red Bull Theater) (live-stream)
The Red Bull’s Zoom-based production of Volpone reprised a celebrated 2012 production (both directed by Jesse Berger) in a fast and funny version that entertainingly capitalised on the restrictions of performing in isolation. Volpone is a play that always seems to feel timely even if, as here, it leans into the period setting, and the play’s dynamics of surveillance and…
-
Bartholomew Abominations (Graeae/Naked Productions) @ BBC Radio 4
What would happen if Zeal-of-the-Land Busy in Bartholomew Fair had actual power? In Paul Sirett’s radio play, performed by Graeae in conjunction with Naked Productions, Busy is reimagined as Sir Michael Best (Garry Robson), Home Secretary and leading member of the ruling Puritan Party in 2032. In the wake of COVID-19, the Puritans came to power, and as part…
-
Bartholomew Fair (Shakespeare’s Globe) @ The Sam Wanamaker Playhouse
Please note – this review is of a preview performance. The sprawling Bartholomew Fair is an enormous play, a cast of seemingly thousands jostling shoulders in one of London’s most notorious fairs. Hosting it in the relatively bijou Sam Wanamaker was a bold choice, but Blanche McIntyre (with designer Ti Green) transformed it to maximise the space, with flooring built…
-
The Devil is an Ass (Mercurius) @ The Rose, Bankside
Jenny Easton’s production of The Devil is an Ass for Mercurius revived one of Jonson’s finest city comedies in a suitably evocative location. Although most of the action took place on the viewing platform in the Rose Playhouse, the play opened with the sight of Lewis Chandler’s Pug in the far distance, pinned against a wall at the far end…
-
Volpone (RSC) @ The Swan Theatre)
If Trevor Nunn’s superlative production of Volpone established just one thing, it is that Jonson’s finest play (cue debate) demands a tour de force performance from its lead. In Henry Goodman, Nunn found the perfect shapeshifter. Goodman, a stage stalwart without the celebrity baggage that fixes the persona of some other leading actors, had the time of his life as…
-
The Alchemist (Let Them Call it Mischief) @ The White Bear Theatre Pub
As previously noted, despite the fact I teach the specialist Jonson module at Nottingham, I’ve never yet seen any of his plays in performance. Happily, the ongoing mission of London’s White Bear Theatre pub to promote the wider early modern canon couldn’t avoid Jonson for too long, and last night was the turn of new company Let Them…
-
Follow
Following
Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
Dr Peter Kirwan 