Michael Pennington's Sweet William - Oxford Playhouse, 27 January

If it takes ten thousand hours of practice to make a virtuoso then I’m not sure what that makes Michael Pennington - as stated in the subtitle to his show (and accompanying book) Sweet William he has spent ‘Twenty Thousand Hours with Shakespeare’.  If nothing else, it makes him an excellent companion on a whistle stop tour of Shakespeare’s life and works.

A show such as this could have been very dry - an hour and a half lecture repeating for the thousandth time that we know surprisingly little about the facts of Shakespeare’s actual life, punctuated with the occasional ‘to be or not to be’ and rounded with a sleep.  Instead, Pennington gives us his own personal experience of Shakespeare.  How he first encountered him on a family outing to see Macbeth when he was a young boy, then linking into Shakespeare’s portrayal of children.  How he believes that Shakespeare joined a travelling theatre company in those lost years between Stratford and London, then linking into his own experience of being in a touring Shakespeare company and the difficulty of transporting stage weapons in Hong Kong (a universal problem, surely).

Pennington’s passion is clear throughout the show, especially when he discusses Shakespeare’s language.  As we the audience love to have Shakespeare’s words in our ears, Pennington the actor clearly loves to feel the words on his tongue, deftly launching into a number of lesser-known speeches from a variety of the plays and sonnets, becoming a young boy, an old man, a spurned lover, all the while managing not to come across as an arrogant luvvie showing off his range.

Near the end of his talk Pennington describes Shakespeare as a master ventriloquist who created a multitude of voices.  Continuing with that metaphor, and not sounding like it but intended entirely as a compliment, Pennington is a master dummy.

Original review here

The Tempest *'

The Tempest. Most of us know at least the basic story: Duke Prospero is usurped, he and his daughter get exiled from his kingdom and end up on an island; twelve years later he conjures a tempest and his enemies end up on the same island; revenge plots and personal growth ensue.

Shakespeare has been done a million times, so if there is a new film version it must be for a reason, right? They must be bringing something modern and exciting to it, right? If I were a film executive, what could I bring to a film of The Tempest that would fit in with the twenty-first century? Make Prospero a woman, Prospera. That will get us some press.

And what do the kids like? CGI! CGI is a gift to a director wanting to portray a character like Ariel, an androgynous spirit of the air. So, we’ll get the lovely Ben Whishaw, make him a little bit see through, give him some breasts for half of the film, and have him run about in the sky. And then, since that’s just a bit too subtle and we want to remind everybody how clever this computer imagery business is, when Prospera is doing her magic we’ll get some of the naffest looking graphics possible, and put Whishaw’s face on a frog, or create some dogs that are even less convincing than the awful monkeys from Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, and whoosh them out of the end of Prospera’s staff. And then we’ll chuck some songs in, because I don’t think the audience will have cringed enough yet.

There is some good: the Shakespeare bits, obviously. The speeches are delivered beautifully, as one would expect from the likes of Helen Mirren, Tom Conti, and Alfred Molina. Russell Brand does a good impression of Russell Brand. Miranda and Ferdinand are very pretty, though a bit wet. The costumes are pleasingly zippy…

When zippy costumes are one of the best things about a film, I think you know you’re not watching a classic. Our revels now are ended? Thank goodness. I think I’d rather have not gone to the party

Original review here

Titus Andronicus - Corpus Christi College, 9-12 June 2010

Titus Andronicus, on this week at Corpus Christi College, is hilarious. Trouble is, I still haven’t worked out if it’s supposed to be. The story is extremely gruesome, and includes murder, rape, hands being chopped off, tongues being cut out, a bit of cannibalism. Did I mention the murders? There are quite a lot. When a play begins with a bowl of blood on the stage, and most of the cast have a red tinge to their clothes already, you know you're in for a dramatic time. 

And dramatic it certainly was. There was shrieking, and screaming, and growling, and moaning, and manic shouting. There was quite a lot of manic shouting. Corpus Christi auditorium doesn't really have the best acoustics for manic shouting. 

But for me, the incoherent words did not matter, and to be honest the plot didn't really matter either. The gore mattered. There was quite a lot of gore. I don't think violent scenes have ever made me laugh so much. Everything was played so melodramatically, it almost became farce. 

There is a line in the play, "Why dost thou laugh? It fits not with this hour". It probably came after a murder. But it made me wonder: was it Shakespeare's intention that the audience should be laughing? Maybe it was a comment on people finding entertainment in violence. Maybe in this production the actors and director were being extremely clever and had turned what is commonly thought of as tragedy into practically slapstick comedy. But, then again, maybe it was just brilliantly bad. 

Oh, and Titus and his brother Marcus are women, and there's a midwife with a beard. I have no idea why.

Much Ado About Nothing - OFS Studio, 25-29 May 2010

Shakespeare meets Allo Allo in Oxford Triptych Theatre’s production of Much Ado About Nothing. Sicily is replaced with post-war France, signified by a long rendition of 'La Marseillaise', some rather enjoyable accordion music, and a couple of huge tricolores festooning the stage (more of which later).
 
The action centres around a bistro run by Leonato, father of beautiful Hero. Don Pedro, Claudio, Benedick, and evil Don John return from war, Claudio promptly falls in love with Hero, grumpy Don John does a bit of evil plotting, and high jinx ensue. But all this is background really for the two characters who steal the show. The actors playing Benedick and Beatrice are excellent as the verbal adversaries who are tricked into falling in love with each other. Or just tricked into admitting what was there all along. What may to a modern audience seem rather contrived becomes convincing, thanks to the obvious enjoyment that Benedick and Beatrice take from their war of wit, and the chemistry between the pair.
 
But back to the big flags: at first it is unclear what is gained by transplanting the story to France. It is all worth it however in the scene where Benedick hides while eavesdropping on Claudio and Don Pedro (who incidentally bears a remarkable resemblance to Charlton Heston), and becomes convinced that Beatrice loves him. The sight of Benedick’s moustache showing through the white stripe of the tricolore is truly a joy to behold.
 
Aside from the strong performances of Benedick and Beatrice it has to be said that some of the acting is hit and miss, and some of the humour does fall a little flat. All in all though this is a pretty good version, and also your last chance to go to the intimate OFS Studio before it is closed for refurbishment. So go along if you can, otherwise you will be an ass, and if you’re very unfortunate it will be written down. Now you want to go, don’t you, just to find out what on earth I’m talking about.