Sunny Afternoon - Harold Pinter Theatre

People are often a bit snobby about so-called ‘jukebox musicals’. But Sunny Afternoon is not one that shoehorns songs into an unlikely story. It uses songs by The Kinks to tell the (loosely factual) story of the band’s experiences in the 60s. And it does it really well.

A lot of The Kinks’ songs have a narrative style anyway, so these work well in a musical. The band within the story also play songs onstage as a band. So nothing here feels forced or shoehorned in.

The show’s clearly aware of the danger, though, and makes no bones about the artifice required for a musical. It’s established early on that Ray Davies often thinks and communicates through song, and there’s a great line mid-song where his wife asks him to stop singing so they can have a proper conversation. But, often in this show, the ‘proper conversations’ do take place in song. Just see the wonderful a capella ‘Days’ or the moment of rapprochement between the brothers. The songs fold into the story as if they were written especially for it.

All of the cast of Sunny Afternoon play instruments (guitars, drums, trombones) as well as acting and singing. And the band’s instruments and mic stands are at the back of the stage throughout, ready to be used at any moment. It makes it an exhilarating performance – part theatre, part gig. In fact, like Orpheus at BAC, some of the audience are sat at tables in the auditorium, and everyone’s encouraged to get to their feet and dance at the end.

I suppose it’s one way to ensure a standing ovation at every performance.

The great thing about the cast in Sunny Afternoon, too, is that they don’t sing as if they’re in a musical. They sing as if they’re in a band. They give high energy yet nuanced performances which fit the style of The Kinks perfectly.

I’ve always appreciated The Kinks’ music – the witty melancholy of the lyrics combining with that distinctive guitar band sound. To me, as a nineties kid, they sounded like Britpop 30 years early. At the mid-week matinée I went to (on 25^th November 2015), I was one of the younger audience members. Most people there were of the baby boomer generation. Maybe for them the show was powered by nostalgia, but for me it was an exciting new show. In jukebox musical terms, it’s probably closer to Buddy than to Mamma Mia, but better than either as far as I’m concerned.

Very much worth seeing. I’ve been singing Kinks song ever since. (All day and all of the night, you might say).

Macbeth - The Pantaloons

Film noir. Intrigue, suspense, guns, cars, darkness, saxophone music. Witches in bins? Shakespearean knock knock jokes? Stories from the audience? Why not? This is the Pantaloons, after all.

Their take on Macbeth (which visited Eastbourne’s Underground Theatre on 17/10/15) incorporated all of the above and much more in a tight, dramatic and inventive production.

I particularly liked the witches. Three puppets in a bin, like some kind of sinister Sesame Street, lit from beneath and swaying and cackling in the darkness. Brilliant.

The light (or lack of it) and sound throughout was really effective – atmospheric, suspenseful, and at times used for comic effect. The film noir homages, the shadows, the way many of Macbeth’s soliloquies were delivered in semi-darkness in the midst of the audience – all these combined to create a much darker show (literally and metaphorically) than we’re used to from the Pantaloons.

And it was great. There were some pretty powerful moments – from Macbeth (Chris Smart), Lady Macbeth (Alex Rivers), Macduff (Neil Jennings), and Malcolm (Hannah Ellis) as our narrator.

I heard several audience members afterwards comment on the dexterity with which the cast switched between drama and comedy. There’s not a huge amount of comedy in Macbeth, but the Pantaloons drew out and made the most of what there is. Kelly Griffiths, in particular, struck up a great rapport with the audience as the Porter: getting members of the audience to tell stories of strange goings-on and riffing on these; telling jokes; encouraging us to join in as guests at the banquet. The audience always becomes part of the play at a Pantaloons show, and Macbeth was no exception.

A packed house at the Underground Theatre all left the place buzzing and saying how much they’d enjoyed it. The cast may have sung about the curse of Macbeth, but luckily the curse didn’t seem to be in evidence on the night.


The Pantaloons are on tour with Macbeth until the end of November – see their website www.thepantaloons.co.uk for full tour details.

Nell Gwynn - Shakespeare's Globe

What a fab end to my Globe-going season this year! Nell Gwynn (which I saw at Shakespeare’s Globe on 11/10/15) is funny, bawdy, energetic, and fun, with a luminous star turn from Gugu Mbatha-Raw in the title role.

This is another Globe play about women and theatre (see also The Heresy of Love) – but Nell Gwynn has a much lighter touch, making serious points by making you laugh. The conversation about why Lady Godiva is famous being a case in point.

While based on real people from 17^th century London, the play is not afraid of including a few anachronisms and of speaking to the modern Globe audience through references to our own culture. For instance, Dryden describes the plot of Titanic when trying out ideas for plays – and King Charles’ resounding “Down with austerity!” got a big cheer from the audience.

Like most of my favourite Globe productions, Nell Gwynn does not go for all-out naturalism. During the performance, the ‘fourth wall’ was regularly broken – with Nell’s mother even taking beer from the audience at one point – and this created an atmosphere of inclusivity and spontaneity that made the whole afternoon great fun.

Probably the best thing I saw at the Globe this season.

The Oresteia - Shakespeare's Globe

So it’s been a summer of Greek theatre this year, what with the Alemida’s Bakkhai and now The Oresteia at the Globe.

The two productions were done very differently from each other, but you could see that the plays came from the same Ancient Greek tradition. It’s quite unlike any other theatre you see. It’s certainly very different from the Shakespeares and the more modern plays that you usually get at the Globe.

However, I thought The Oresteia (which I saw on 26^th September 2015) suited the Globe quite well. I liked the way the cast walked through the yard, and how the chorus merged with the crowd at some points.

Like the Bakkhai, The Oresteia is intense, gory, and morally perplexing. Perhaps in Ancient Greece it was obvious whose side to be on and what view to take of the characters and their actions – but, if so, it’s certainly not so clear today.

Most of all, the impression I was left with was that The Oresteia is a play that hates women. We may have been encouraged to laugh, in this production, at some of the outdated notions on display – parading a giant gold phallus at the end of the play doesn’t allow anyone to take the conclusion seriously – but it remains an uncomfortable story in terms of gender relations and hierarchy.

Even when Clytemnestra kills her husband, another man comes along and claims the credit for it! (I never thought I’d feel so indignant on a savage murderer’s behalf).

I feel like this would have been a good piece to study at A level. To really dig down into its problems and contradictions; to analyse the way they used the space, the visuals, and the sound; to work out how the meaning or meanings were pieced together.

But as it is, it was an interesting, enjoyably perplexing afternoon at the theatre. I may not be a student any more, but I can still appreciate feeling perplexed occasionally.

The Heresy of Love - Shakespeare's Globe

Well, the summer’s coming to an end, but there’s still time for a few more trips to the Globe yet. We’ve done some Shakespeare (The Merchant of Venice, As You Like It, Much Ado About Nothing), and now we’ve started on the non-Shakespeare.

First up, The Heresy of Love by Helen Edmundson. I saw this at Shakespeare’s Globe on its last performance (Saturday 5^th September 2015).

Following Blue Stockings a couple of years ago, this is another play about the plight of intelligent women in a world run by men. It shares themes with this season’s Merchant of Venice too, dealing as it does with the more oppressive aspects of religion.

I found The Heresy of Love an interesting play because of its constant sense of deferral or displacement of the truth. You were never sure who was being honest with whom or about what. And while most of the characters seemed to be in the wrong at one point or another, none of them was ever really presented as being in the right. No straightforward goodies and baddies here – just lots of people, each with their own conflicting motivations.

I’ll be honest, I’m not sure the Globe was the ideal setting for this play. It’s difficult to conjure a sense of claustrophobia or being shut in or trapped when there’s a wide open roof and sky above you. But perhaps that would have been better at an evening performance (I saw a matinee).

It was a thought-provoking play, though. And very moving at the end. Not a play that gives you any easy answers.


On a sort-of related note, the playwright Helen Edmundson also wrote the musical adaptation of Swallows and Amazons with Neil Hannon, which is one of my favourite things I’ve ever seen at the theatre. Just wanted to give it a mention…

Much Ado About Nothing - Shakespeare's Globe

So this was my second Much Ado in a week. Hot on the heels of The Pantaloons’ version (my review here), I saw this production of Much Ado About Nothing at Shakespeare’s Globe on 15^th August 2015.

This was one of the Globe’s touring productions, and it was noticeably different in style from a normal, non-touring Globe production. In fact, it was rather like a cross between a Globe-style and a Pantaloons-style production.

There was a smaller cast than usual for the Globe: just eight of them. Each actor played at least two roles and at least one instrument, as well as singing. (So far, much like The Pantaloons). They also did things like make references to overhead helicopters and throw oranges into the audience and encourage them to throw them back. (I have seen Globe productions that have done this kind of thing before, but it’s also the sort of thing The Pantaloons might do).

...That’s probably enough of the comparisons now.

The cast of this Much Ado, most likely used to playing in all sorts of different settings, made the most wonderful use of the Globe space. They drew in, spoke to, and acted towards every part of the audience – not just front and centre, which some recent Globe productions have had a tendency to do. And the cast were clearly exhilarated by the response they received from the sold-out Globe crowd.

Benedick (Christopher Harper) was undoubtedly the star of the show in this production of Much Ado About Nothing. His clowning in the gulling scene went down particularly well, and he was both funny and believable throughout. Beatrice (Emma Pallant) was also strong.

I like Much Ado About Nothing as a play. It’s probably up there with Twelfth Night in terms of Shakespeare’s comedies. I suppose it’s just as well I like it, as I’ve got to know it quite well in the last week or so.

Both enjoyable versions. Both worth seeing.

Much Ado About Nothing - The Pantaloons

It’s always fun seeing a Pantaloons show, but it’s a particular pleasure when it’s a Shakespeare play.

They performed Much Ado About Nothing at Eastbourne’s Underground Theatre on 11^th August 2015. On top of the familiar Pantaloons ingredients of music, ad libbing, and interacting with the audience, Much Ado has the added benefit of being written by Shakespeare, who has been known to write a good play or two.

The cast has such ease with the language: full of life and character; never a struggle to understand; you could hardly discern the join between the original text and the modern asides.

In a cast of just four, there was much doubling (tripling/quadrupling), and this is where the physicality of the cast’s performances came into its own. They didn’t just rely on costume or voice to distinguish one character from another: each character was immediately identifiable simply by how they held themselves and moved. The villainous Don John, Borachio’s mimes, the old man Antonio, and the choreography of the Watch showed this physicality at its best.

Other touches I enjoyed: the Loons boxes; the music, bubbles and birds when Benedick decided he was in love (and the expression on Neil Jennings’ face as Benedick at that point); the ‘post-credits’ moments at the end; the way the cast seamlessly incorporated a broken telescope prop (and trying to fix it) into a scene, without once losing the rhythm of the dialogue or direction of the action.

The Pantaloons are primarily touring Much Ado About Nothing as an outdoor production, and I’d have liked to have seen this outdoors. I can see that certain scenes would work even better out in the open air and with more space than the stage at the Underground Theatre would allow.

Having seen other Pantaloons shows both inside and outside (Pride and Prejudice most recently), it’s interesting what differences the setting makes. Outdoors in Pride and Prejudice, and probably in Much Ado too, a more serious, reflective mood seems to settle as the darkness falls. While still moving in an indoor setting, I can imagine Claudio’s heartbroken song at Hero’s ‘tomb’ is quite spine-tingling outside at nightfall.

But the Underground Theatre, as its name suggests, is underground – and there are definite benefits to being indoors. You know you won’t get rained on, for a start.

Speaking of which, (as I’m hoping it doesn’t rain), I’ll be seeing the Globe’s production of Much Ado About Nothing this weekend. It’ll be interesting to compare and contrast.


The Pantaloons are on tour with Much Ado About Nothing until 23^rd August. Full tour dates are on their website: thepantaloons.co.uk

Bakkhai - Almeida Theatre

Intense would be the word for this, I think.

Bakkhai at the Almeida (8^th August 2015): three male actors playing the main roles; a chorus of women speaking and singing in unison; a sparse set; no interval; words and music woven into some sort of spell of intensity.

It wasn’t all intense. There were moments of levity. Take Ben Whishaw’s androgyny contrasting with the sight of Bertie Carvel in drag, for instance, who was evidently playing it for laughs to begin with. Having seen Carvel in the RSC’s Matilda a few years ago, there was a definite hint of Miss Trunchbull lingering here.

I saw the National Theatre of Scotland’s production of The Bacchae (same story, different spelling) in 2007, and from what I remember, it was very different to this. That had a sense of spectacle, violence and exhilaration, while the Almeida’s Bakkhai was much quieter in comparison. More than being about excess, this was about control, in various forms.

Control and intensity and a sense of unease.

Treasure Island - The Pantaloons

Huge amounts of energy. Huge amounts of silliness. Huge amounts of fun.

This incredibly fast-paced production of Treasure Island by The Pantaloons (which I saw in Eastbourne on 25^th July 2015) sees just three actors play all the characters. There follows an entertaining variety of madcap characterisations and questionable regional accents. And audience interaction, singing, drumming, ad libbing, and so much packed in you wonder that the cast don’t just collapse in a heap at the end!

I really enjoyed it. So did the kids in the audience around me. They were completely rapt throughout.

In a lot of ways, watching The Pantaloons’ Treasure Island is like watching kids playing at being pirates. The plastic swords, the parrot puppet, the hand gestures to show imaginary spurts of blood when injured. And all played with such gusto and exuberance.

I particularly enjoyed the sword fights (hey, I’m a big kid), and the hip hop medley as Jim ‘drives’ the ship.

I have to confess there were times when I didn’t entirely follow what was going on plot-wise – but it didn’t bother me in the slightest. I was having too much fun.

I’ve read the original book of Treasure Island (I’m afraid it hasn’t stuck in my head much), and I’ve seen the Muppets’ version on film (which has stuck in my head much more). The Pantaloons’ version rivals the Muppets’ for zaniness and probably surpasses both versions in terms of pace.

Really, the huge amount of energy on stage was something to behold.


The Pantaloons are on tour with Treasure Island until 30^th August 2015. See their website for full tour details.

They will be returning to Eastbourne’s Under Ground Theatre on 11^th August with Much Ado About Nothing. After their Treasure Island and Pride and Prejudice, I’m looking forward to seeing what else they’ve got up their sleeves.

Pride and Prejudice - The Pantaloons

Pride and Prejudice is one of those texts that everyone thinks they know all about – whether or not they’ve read Austen’s book. It’s a romance. About well-to-do people with excessively polite manners. And Colin Firth emerging dripping from a lake.

The Pantaloons, of course, excel at playing with these kinds of widely-known texts. They take what everyone thinks they know, lightly mock those expectations, draw out the humour of the original (many of the lines in this adaptation are taken word for word from the book), and they present their own Pantaloonish take.

They started the evening at the Underground Theatre by asking the audience who’d read the book (almost everyone said they had) – and then by asking who’d said that they’d read the book but had actually just seen an adaptation (a few honest souls said yes). They told us on more than one occasion that the famous lake scene was neither in the book nor in their adaptation. And throughout they slipped constantly and seamlessly between 18^th century and 21^st century dialogue, bringing the characters to life and interacting with the audience. This is what I mean by ‘their own Pantaloonish take’: they don’t just act the story out in front of you, they step out of it, bring you into it, have fun with it, and make you engage with it.

The focus of The Pantaloons’ Pride and Prejudice is probably more on the comedy than on the romance. There are certainly some particularly memorable characterisations, what with Lady Catherine’s roar, her daughter’s cough, Mary’s leadenness, and a Mr Collins who wouldn’t be out of place in an episode of Green Wing.

But the scenes that are played more or less straight – such as Lizzy and Darcy’s argument after his first proposal – are absolutely electric. And the moment when Wickham is all that Lizzy can think about is both amusing and evocative too.

The music, as always in a Pantaloons show, plays an important part in creating an atmosphere. But in this production, they make the most of not having a piano in one particular scene, as a cast member becomes the piano (and is then ‘played’ by other cast members). Indeed, an impromptu piano-based pun competition set off by an audience member threatened to derail the scene at one point – but they swiftly got back on track and it served to showcase both the quick wit of the cast and their skill in dealing with and incorporating unexpected distractions.

Aside from one or two rather vocal audience members, it was a quieter audience than usual when I saw Pride and Prejudice (Sunday 14^th June 2015). But the cast worked hard to create the same inclusive, energetic atmosphere as always, and – though quiet – everyone there left with a smile on their face.

So if you think you already know all about Pride and Prejudice and what to expect – this’ll be different from the adaptations you’ve seen before. You might not get Colin Firth, but you will have a gloriously entertaining evening.


The Pantaloons are on tour with Pride and Prejudice throughout the summer – see their website www.thepantaloons.co.uk for full tour details.

The Merchant of Venice - Shakespeare's Globe

The Merchant of Venice is an uncomfortable play, dealing as it does with racism, religious enmity and revenge.

It would undoubtedly have had different resonances in Shakespeare’s time from the resonances it has for audiences now. But I can’t imagine it would have been any less uncomfortable back then. Almost every character in this play does or says something questionable, and they are each called out on it by another character. The uncomfortableness is right there in the text.

The conflicts enacted and the complexities of these conflicts are not shied away from in the play. And the Globe’s production of The Merchant of Venice (which I saw Saturday 6^th June 2015) really drew this out.

The ending was particularly powerful – with Jessica’s Jewish identity reasserting itself as her father was forced to convert to Christianity – but the lighter moments also explored the same theme. When Launcelot Gobbo got two audience members up on stage to play his conscience and a fiend, it was hilarious. The guy playing the fiend got three rounds of applause all to himself. But it also signified the confusion over what’s ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ in the play. Gobbo got the audience shouting out for one side or another, all in fun, until all that could be heard was a great muddled din.

It’s interesting, watching The Merchant of Venice from the position of someone in a multicultural, increasingly secular society, where it is not assumed that the majority of the audience is Christian. The audience at the Globe is not expected to automatically identify with the Christians in the play. But what we do see – particularly in this production – is one culture asserting its dominance over others in troubling ways.

In the Globe’s production, this is not just about race and religion. Antonio’s love for Bassanio is also used to show how homosexuality is suppressed. And the female characters, of course, are quite clearly shown to be trapped in a man’s world.

For once, I didn’t mind that there was no jig at the end here. It would have seemed inappropriate after those troubling final scenes. As it was, we left the theatre still feeling troubled and uncomfortable. The world has not resolved these problems yet.

Rebecca - Kneehigh

I’ve not read the novel or seen any other adaptations of it, so I was coming to Rebecca fresh. But regardless of my knowledge of the book, it’s clear that Kneehigh’s stage production of Rebecca is a very inventive adaptation.

As soon as you see the set, you know you’re in for something special. Part grand house in ruins; part seashore; broken staircases running across the stage. And the boat looming centre-stage throughout the first half, reminding us always that Rebecca’s absence is a very real presence in the house.

If any of the audience at Eastbourne’s Devonshire Park Theatre (15^th April 2015) was expecting a straight adaptation, with ‘realistic’ sets and the usual period drama tropes, they would have been taken by surprise by Kneehigh’s Rebecca.

This is a much more stylised adaptation. Set, sound, lighting, puppetry and music all combine to tell the tale and draw out the themes. Such as the combination of jazz music on a gramophone and sea shanties being played by the actor-musicians: the clash of the sophisticated and the elemental.

Obviously if you’ve seen Kneehigh before, or know them by reputation, then you know that they’re nothing if not inventive. Rebecca features their trademark music, comedy and playfulness and ties these up in a full on, dark, ambitious production.

I remember seeing Baz Luhrmann’s Moulin Rouge in the cinema when it came out, and having to take a moment at the end just to recover from the force of the visual and aural whirlwind that had just swept around me.

I felt a bit like that at the end of Rebecca.

Very much worth seeing.

Shakespeare in Love - Noel Coward Theatre

Clever, fast-paced, energetically played and slickly mounted, this stage adaptation of the film Shakespeare in Love is worth seeing before it closes. I caught it on Saturday 11^th April 2015.

Like the film, the play is littered with references to Shakespeare’s plays and poems. Other well-known playwrights and actors of the period feature as characters – as do monarchs, come to that. The audience is expected to know these references and to recognise them quickly. The pace does not let up for a moment.

Being a regular Globe-goer, I appreciated how the set on the stage of the Noel Coward Theatre cleverly mimicked the Elizabethan-style theatre. The scenes where we were watching the characters backstage (in the foreground) looking out onto the actors onstage were particularly well done.

(It perhaps goes without saying that I thought the way the play within a play was handled here was much better than in Peter Pan Goes Wrong).

With Elizabethan-style music and a jig at the end of the play, Shakespeare in Love consciously echoes the conventions of Elizabethan theatre. I couldn’t help thinking how fun it would be to see this put on at the Globe. Some of the cleverness of the set might have to be jettisoned, but it would bring the kind of immediacy and sense of fun to the production that is a struggle to achieve in a proscenium arch theatre.

As it is, though, Shakespeare in Love has a pretty good go at recreating that atmosphere, and it’s undoubtedly a clever, witty show.

On the Road by Jack Kerouac

I’ve just realised that I’ve only been writing about theatre recently, and haven’t told you about any of the books I’ve been reading.

The most recent one I finished was On the Road by Jack Kerouac. This is an incredibly vivid evocation of a time, a place and an attitude. So much so that you almost feel as if you’re experiencing it yourself.

Except that there are jarring points for a 21^st century reader. You rush along with it up to a certain point and then you think – oh, hang on, that’s not on.

This is especially true, for me, in the depiction of and attitudes towards women. I’d be really interested in reading a Wide Sargasso Sea kind of novel from a female character’s perspective. Maybe one of Dean’s wives, or one of the Mexican prostitutes, or even Sal’s aunt. What are their stories?

But On the Road is about capturing one man’s impressions of his travels and of his friends and of the people he encounters. And what it sets out to do, it does perfectly. You can definitely see why it’s called a classic.

Peter Pan Goes Wrong - Mischief Theatre

Laughter is a funny thing. (Pun intended). I can spend all day laughing at little things – but go into a theatre to watch something that’s designed to make people laugh and my laughter becomes something different. Suddenly it’s a reward I can choose to bestow or not. It’s an effort. It’s something that has to be cajoled out of me.

Or at least, that’s how it felt while watching Mischief Theatre’s Peter Pan Goes Wrong at the Devonshire Park Theatre, Eastbourne, on 24^th March 2015.

People around me were in hysterics. I found some bits quite amusing. I suppose it’s all personal taste.

This play comes from the same people as The Play that Goes Wrong, which by all accounts is very funny indeed. So I went into Peter Pan Goes Wrong ready and expecting to be entertained.

The conceit of the play is that a small amateur dramatics society is putting on a Christmas production of Peter Pan. For me – while they squeezed the mileage out of the am dram bit – they could have made more of the Peter Pan bit.

The original Peter Pan (without anything going wrong) is a playful, mischievous text. It’s full of knowing winks to the audience and doesn’t shy away from the fact that it creates an imaginary world where fantastical, ridiculous things happen. I can’t help but feel that if Mischief Theatre could have found a way to tease this out in Peter Pan Goes Wrong then they would have had a much funnier play on their hands.

But they weren’t really interested in Peter Pan. Their main focus was the am dram aspect of it all, which they played well. They were completely committed to the world they created for the amateur theatre company.

The programme on sale had biographies for the characters within the play who were the cast of Peter Pan. There were fake adverts in the programme which related to the world of the play. In the interval, Christmas music was played – as Peter Pan was supposed to be the amateur company’s Christmas production.

We, the audience, were very much cast as the audience at the amateur company’s performance. When the cast addressed us as the audience, they were in character as the amateur actors addressing their own local audience. They played it straight in this respect.

There was no suggestion of the third layer – that we were an audience at the Devonshire Park Theatre watching a professional company pretending to be amateurs. There was no knowing wink to the audience, nor any acknowledgement that they were creating an imaginary world where ridiculous things happen.

Any why should there be? Judging by the laughter around me, this wasn’t a problem for most of the audience. But I found it a tricky position to be in. I was being asked to suspend my disbelief – and yet I was also being asked to laugh. If I really did buy into the world of the play, then the evening was not funny but painful. Lord knows I’ve seen enough not-very-good amateur productions in my time.

Despite these reservations, there were moments that made me laugh out loud. And there were moments that I recognised with amusement from real productions I’d seen. I just felt that it could have been much funnier if only Mischief Theatre’s writing and direction had been a little more mischievous.

Farinelli and the King - Sam Wanamaker Playhouse, Shakespeare's Globe

I went to see the last performance of Farinelli and the King at the Globe’s Sam Wanamaker Playhouse on Sunday 8^th March 2015, and I haven’t had much time to write about it since. So sorry this is rather short!

This was a strange, sad little play – both humorous and melancholy. Musing on the relationship between dreams and reality, madness and reason, the physical and the metaphysical, the court and the forest, private and public.

The dual casting of Farinelli – singer (William Purefoy) and actor (Sam Crane) playing the same role – only heightened this sense of duality. The voice as separate from the man.

And surely the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse is the ideal setting for this play. Close, candlelit, intimate, but with obscured sightlines meaning you could only ever see part of the action. A wonderful acoustic, too – important for the music.

It was my first visit to the Globe’s indoor theatre and it felt a little strange coming to the Globe and not worrying about the weather. It’s another magical space, though. And it’s always a pleasure to see Mark Rylance do his thing. Especially here.