Romeo and Juliet - The Pantaloons

Everybody knows Romeo and Juliet. They’ve either studied it at school, or seen a film adaptation, or maybe some people have even seen it in the theatre. Most people probably don’t think of it as a funny play. But when you see the Pantaloons’ version (as I did on 19^th August 2016), you realise how much humour there is in Romeo and Juliet.

From the punning banter between Mercutio (Mark Hayward) and Romeo (Tim Phelps), to the affectionately teasing relationship between Juliet (Violet Patton-Ryder) and the Nurse (Caitlin Storey), the Pantaloons draw out and make the most of the comedy in the text.

And it’s great to see original Pantaloons Mark Hayward and Caitlin Storey back on the stage and flexing their acting and improvisation muscles again. The quick-wittedness and warmth of their interactions with the audience is a joy, and Caitlin Storey’s Nurse has the audience in the palm of her hand throughout (with or without the help of kitkats).

That’s not to say that the drama and tragedy are forgotten about in this production though. Romeo’s despair on hearing of Juliet’s ‘death’ was palpable, and I was particularly struck by Juliet’s speech before she drinks the potion that will make her appear to be dead, where she voices her fears about waking in the tomb. It’s not a speech that I’ve ever really registered before, but Violet Patton-Ryder’s delivery of it really made me feel the horror of what Juliet’s imagining.

The cast of just four in this Romeo and Juliet moved effortlessly between the drama and the comedy – and between the Shakespearean language and modern ad libs. I’ve written before about how the atmosphere changes at an outdoor show as darkness falls, and it was the same here. Romeo and Juliet does get darker as it goes on, and the fall of night only intensifies that.

I feel I must give a mention to the balcony scene. Previous Pantaloons productions of Romeo and Juliet have played on how well known certain lines are (“It’s the famous bit!”) – but in this version they take a fresh approach to the scene. I won’t spoil it for those of you who haven’t seen it yet, but I thought it balanced the humour and the romance of the scene nicely, subverting our expectations without diverting from the text.

And another special mention must go to the venue where I saw the play. St Mark’s College at Audley End had put together a Romeo and Juliet themed playlist for the incoming and the interval – Prokofiev, Des’ree, Dire Straits, Taylor Swift… I can’t imagine many venues put that much thought into setting the scene for a touring theatre company’s show. Nice touch.


The Pantaloons are on tour with Romeo and Juliet until 26^th August 2016 and then will be touring an indoor version of the production later in the autumn. Full details are on their website. I’m sure the autumn cast will be equally brilliant, but it’s well worth catching the summer cast if you can!

A Midsummer Night's Dream - Shakespeare's Globe

A new Globe season. The start of the summer. (Only a little rain). And a new artistic director – with A Midsummer Night’s Dream the first production under Emma Rice’s leadership, and also the first production directed by her at the Globe.

She’s come from Kneehigh, and there were some familiar Kneehigh faces in this – particularly Puck (Katy Owen), who was very funny as the young servant Robert in Kneehigh’s wonderful Rebecca last year. She’s equally funny as Puck in this – mischievous, naughty, dangerous and fun, playing gleefully with both the actors and the audience. And Bottom (Ewan Wardrop) was another familiar face from Kneehigh who became an instant Globe favourite.

There were also echoes of Kneehigh’s style in the music, dancing, aerial work, and general air of irreverence in this A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Special mention to the Changeling puppet, which was quite beautiful too.

I can see what this production is intended to be – a riot of fun and colour and wildness. I’m thinking something like a Baz Luhrmann film live, on stage, in the Globe space. But it needed to be pacier to really achieve that wildness. I dare say the pace will pick up as the run goes on.

What worked particularly well were the scenes with the lovers. I really like the male Helena – ‘Helenus’ – the gender switch brought something new to the dynamic. And all four lovers had great chemistry and comic timing. They were recognisably of our world and our time (the Hoxton hipster references went down well, and I enjoyed the Beyoncé dance).

In fact, all the dancing was fabulous – from the fairies’ slightly terrifying moves right through to the joyous Bollywood-inspired jig at the end.

But am I allowed one quibble, as someone who goes to the Globe a fair bit? I know I probably sound like a bore, but I found the amplification of the actors’ speaking voices quite disconcerting. I didn’t mind it for the music, but for the dialogue it seemed unnecessary and took away from the intimacy of the Globe space. When you’re standing in the yard, sometimes actors talk directly to you - or sometimes someone tall is standing in front of you and you can’t see who’s talking, so you rely on your ears to tell you where to crane to look. When their voices are coming from somewhere other than their bodies, neither of those things work.

In a production that was otherwise really proudly physical – with some imaginative and brilliant movement – it seemed strange that the voice was treated as separate from that physicality. The voice is part of the body too.

But hey, that’s a minor quibble. It’s exciting to see new things at the Globe. New ideas, new approaches, new faces. And I really enjoyed A Midsummer Night’s Dream (which I saw at the matinée on 21^st May 2016). It was naughty, irreverent, imaginative and fun, and – most importantly for a comedy – it was funny.

I’m looking forward to the rest of the season!

Henry V - Merely Theatre

Henry V is known for being quite a masculine play: all war and bravado. So what was interesting about Merely Theatre’s production (which I saw at Eastbourne’s Devonshire Park Theatre on Thursday 17^th March 2916) was its gender-blind casting.

In the performance I saw (and the line-up changes, show to show), there were four female cast members and one male. As is often the case with all-female, all-male, or gender-blind casts, this sometimes made me forget about the gender of the characters entirely, and sometimes made me focus on gender even more.

What I found most striking in Henry V was that it was where female actors were playing female roles that it felt most like a caricature. I don’t know if this would have been the same had I seen male actors in those roles, but as it was, it was noticeable that the women were performing being women in a way that it wasn’t so obvious that, for instance, Zena Carswell was playing Henry as a man.

This put me in mind of a lecture I had at university about the performativity of gender. We were shown a clip of Some Like It Hot, with Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon in drag – and then Marilyn Monroe sashaying along and putting on an unmistakeable performance of femininity.

It seems there’s something about men playing women or women playing men being juxtaposed with women playing women that makes you notice just how much of a performance gender is.

Aside from the gender thing, this production of Henry V had some interesting ideas around social class, some fine comedic acting, and some very rousing speeches (particularly the St Crispin’s Day speech). And that was just with the cast I saw – there’s a whole other line-up possible and I’m sure each version brings a different slant to it.


Merely Theatre are currently on tour with Henry V and A Midsummer Night’s Dream – see their website www.merelytheatre.co.uk for full tour details.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

The Tempest - The Pantaloons

With their trademark audience interaction, ad libbing, music, and, of course, Shakespeare, The Pantaloons took us to Prospero’s Isle of Wonder on Sunday 24^th August 2014, for The Tempest.

The evening was hosted by a very hard-working Ariel (Elliot Quinn), who stepped in and out of the action – playing the part of Ariel within the play, but also chatting to the audience, providing the music, and even reading out the stage directions. Would it more accurately have been named ‘Ariel’s Isle of Wonder’?

But while Ariel worked hard, it was clearly Prospero (Martin Gibbons) who held the power. There was a scene at the end where puppets were used to represent some of the characters. This was explained by Ariel as being a way of getting round the problem of having a small cast, but it also showed how the characters were puppets that Prospero had been manipulating throughout the piece.

There was also a great moment, probably only at this particular venue (Smallhythe Place), where Prospero’s words echoed magnificently back around the space. It felt as though the isle full of noises was reverberating with the power of Prospero’s speech.

And speaking of the isle full of noises, that famous speech was brought vividly to life by Thomas Judd’s Caliban. And of course a reference to its use in the Olympic opening ceremony was thrown in for good measure.

You can always rely on The Pantaloons to pick up on the cultural reference points that an audience brings with them. It might be a direct allusion to other interpretations of The Tempest – or it might be a reference to the vineyard down the road from the venue, or an ad lib about how a biologist in the audience looks like Steve Irwin. (Both of these featured in the performance at Smallhythe Place).

The bit that probably made me chuckle the most was not really Shakespeare at all: Stefano (Nicky Diss) tells Trinculo (Martin Gibbons) to be quiet – or, in Shakespearian language, ‘mum’ – and Trinculo responds with the ready retort ‘Your mum’.

That deliberate clash of the archaic and the up-to-date is one of the things that makes The Pantaloons so much fun. It was the same in their History of Britain, which I saw earlier in the summer, and which revelled in mixing the historical with the contemporary. And I dare say it will be the same in their take on Bleak House, which I am very much looking forward to seeing in the autumn.

Macbeth et son ouvrier - Ecole dramatique de Yajlou (Iran) at Espace Charles Trenet, Tain / Tournon

This was a very multilingual experience. While I was on holiday in France, I saw an adaptation of Macbeth performed by an Iranian company. It was performed, according to the programme, in Azerbaijani Turkish, with a few simple words of French thrown in here and there.

So the largely French audience on Tuesday 29^th July in Tain didn’t understand the words any more than I did. Quite a unifying experience, in a way.

As with the Globe’s multilingual season a year or two ago in London (see my reviews of the Georgian As You Like It and South African Venus and Adonis), this production had to use something other than words to communicate with the audience.

A live musical soundtrack provided by three musicians on the side of the stage helped to convey what was going on in the plot. Shadow puppetry, costume and props also combined to create a sort of symbolic visual language for the audience to interpret, and it was a very physical piece.

Although this was clearly not Shakespeare’s play in translation (it was a 45 minute piece set on a construction site), it probably did help to know already how the story of Macbeth unfolds. I think, in fact, that the few English people in the audience may have understood more than the French, simply because most of us had studied Macbeth at school.

So when Lady Macbeth started furiously rubbing her hands, we knew that this was the ‘Out damned spot’ bit. And when the three actors (for there were only three in the cast) became a sort of three-headed tangle of bodies and speech, we knew without needing words that they were representing the witches.

But for me, it wasn’t just the adaptation, the language and the physicality that made this an interesting piece. It was also interesting because of the cast.

As I said, there were only three actors. Two of these were women.

Now, I don’t know a great deal about Iranian culture (although Persepolis opened my eyes a little), but from what I’ve heard I rather gather that women on stage might be frowned upon by the authorities. So it was interesting to see the roles of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth performed by women in that context.

Was it significant that as Lady Macbeth went mad her headscarf worked its way loose and finally came off? Did I only notice that because it was an Iranian company performing in France, where there have been particular controversies over the wearing of headscarves? As neither French nor Iranian, do I interpret the piece differently from either of those audiences would? Or perhaps my gender has a bigger impact on my reading of the production?

These were questions I came away with, and I do like to leave the theatre with questions.

A very interesting evening.

Twelfth Night - Filter

One of those happy things in life: I’ve never seen a bad production of Twelfth Night. And Filter’s version (which I saw at Eastbourne’s Devonshire Park Theatre on 25^th March 2014) is no exception.

Anarchic, energetic, and with a definite sense of ‘licence’, Filter’s Twelfth Night offered just the refreshment I needed after a dull Tuesday in the office. (And no, I’m not referring to the pizza and tequila on offer from the cast!)

This production was less concerned with the romantic entanglements of the twins, and more interested in the foolish and drunken antics of the other characters. The notion of misrule wasn’t just acted out in front of us and contained on the stage – it was running right through the whole production.

The way the usually central plot was secondary to the revelry of Sir Toby Belch and Sir Andrew Aguecheek. The way Shakespeare’s script was almost abandoned for large swathes of the evening while we did things like throw velcro balls at the stage. The way the audience was invited on to the stage in a conga line. Even Malvolio, in this version, was a wannabe rock star who was only too willing to throw off the shackles of convention (and most of his clothes).

I’ve seen a fair few of these elements elsewhere: throwing things at the stage (Bristol Old Vic’s Swallows and Amazons); Shakespeare mixed with audience interaction (The Pantaloons); getting the audience to join in the party (Kneehigh’s Midnight’s Pumpkin – and even Once had a functioning bar on stage). But seeing it at the Devonshire Park Theatre, with its proscenium arch and orchestra pit, just enhanced that sense of misrule.

A middle-aged Eastbourne gentleman near me muttered to his wife half way through: “Well I’ve never seen anything like this before.” And that summed up the evening for me. This stage, which has seen so many Agatha Christies, was overrun by a sort of joyous anarchy. We all joined Filter’s party and helped them turn the play and the theatre upside down for a little while.

And then we went back to work the next day, as if nothing had ever happened. The twins married the right people, and order was restored.

 

Richard II - RSC at The Barbican

I have a work colleague who is a bit of a coffee connoisseur. One lunchtime, she left the office declaring that she was going to try the free coffee being offered to loyalty card holders at a nearby supermarket.

When she came back, we asked her what she thought of the coffee.

“Well,” she said, somewhat unenthusiastically, “There was nothing really wrong with it.”

I laughed at the time, but actually I came out of the RSC’s Richard II at the Barbican on Saturday 18^th January feeling the same way.

There was nothing really wrong with the production. But there was nothing particularly inspiring about it either.

David Tennant put in a good performance as the androgynous Richard. Oliver Ford Davies livened things up with his Duke of York. But somehow the production never quite elevated itself above ‘perfectly alright’.

I found myself comparing it throughout to the BBC’s version of the play, which formed part of The Hollow Crown series a year or two ago. I remember watching that version and raving about it afterwards – how beautifully it played with your sympathies and made you uncertain of where your loyalties should lie. How one moment you thought Bolingbroke entirely in the right, and the next you were won over by Richard.

In the BBC version, Rory Kinnear played Bolingbroke as a reasonable, likeable man. In this RSC production, Bolingbroke was a bloodthirsty brute. Both interpretations make sense dramatically, but Bolingbroke never for a moment had my sympathy in this production. But then, nor did Richard for very long.

The programme for the RSC production told us what a risky play this was for Shakespeare to write and to put on. Intellectually, I appreciated that. But there was little in this production that had a similar sense of risk.

One thing I was more inspired by, though, was the Barbican itself. Despite the fact that it’s a hugely confusing building, you can see how carefully designed the whole complex must have been. From the unusual auditorium (with an individual door into each row), to the surrounding estate (a sort of 1960s utopia, hewn from concrete) – the whole construction is a perfect example of its kind.

There are probably all sorts of things wrong with the place, but somehow it’s all exactly right. I just wish Richard II had been a bit more like that.

The Canterbury Tales - The Pantaloons

Like a lot of people, I studied part of The Canterbury Tales at school. I’ll be honest and admit that I don’t remember a great deal about the text – except that I remember thinking it wasn’t as difficult as I expected it to be.

At around the same time, I saw the film A Knight’s Tale, with Heath Ledger and Paul Bettany. So Chaucer was always that slightly impish Paul Bettany figure in my head.

These two vague notions are probably always going to inform any encounter I have with The Canterbury Tales. And happily, they fit right in with The Pantaloons’ take on the tales – which is not difficult at all, and definitely slightly impish.

I went to the Underground Theatre in Eastbourne to see The Pantaloons’ production of The Canterbury Tales (10^th Nov 2013). As soon as we walked in, we could feel a bit of a buzz in the air. The cast were in character, chatting with audience members – and, unlike the very reserved audience The Pantaloons had to play to at Michelham Priory in the summer (A Midsummer Night’s Dream, with largely the same cast), this audience was chatting back.

It may have been partly because everyone seemed to know each other (as the cast remarked upon more than once), but there was definitely a friendly sort of atmosphere in the almost sold-out UGT.

And that atmosphere carried on right the way through this colourful, funny and energetic take on The Canterbury Tales. Incorporating song, rhyme, puppets, chickens, Shakespeare, opera, improvisation and more, The Pantaloons took us through each of Chaucer’s tales in turn. They’d even printed a list in the programme so you could mark which tales you liked best, and at the end they asked for our favourite. (I think it was the chickens that won the audience vote in Eastbourne).

I’d seen The Pantaloons do The Canterbury Tales before – a couple of years ago, with a different cast and out in the open air. Having only seen them perform outdoors before, I wasn’t sure how their style would translate to an indoor setting.

But it was great. The house lights were only half dimmed, so we could all still see each other (which helped with the audience interaction bits), and in a way I think the indoor setting actually helped to build the atmosphere. Walking through the doors into the auditorium was a bit like going through the wardrobe into Narnia. Outside was the normal, workaday world – and suddenly inside we were in the bright, boisterous Pantaloon-land.

I used to work front of house in a theatre, and one of my favourite parts of the job was seeing the audience leave with smiles on their faces at the end of a show. I think I would have enjoyed working for a Pantaloons performance.

The Pantaloons are currently on tour with The Canterbury Tales and Grimm Fairy Tales (which I’ll be seeing when they return to Eastbourne in December). See their website www.thepantaloons.co.uk for full tour details.

A Midsummer Night's Dream - The Pantaloons

I’ve seen quite a lot of versions of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, so it’s not always a play that fills me with much excitement. But you can rely on The Pantaloons to provide something fresh – and this production (which I saw at Michelham Priory on 25^th August 2013) was fun.

A recurring ukulele motif ran throughout: Bottom’s donkey head was rather ingeniously made from ukuleles; another ukulele doubled as the enchanted flower; and music played on ukuleles, banjos and guitars was used to signify the weaving of magic.

The Pantaloons’ trademark brightly coloured costumes were also used to provide a marker between the carefree atmosphere of the forest and the drab, everyday world of Theseus in his buttoned-up coat. I worried that the audience at Michelham Priory might be too firmly stuck in the buttoned-up world to be transported to the magical, colourful world of The Pantaloons – but after some cajoling, they did warm up a bit.

With the whole audience playing the forest (and one man a screech owl), and various unsuspecting audience members cast as fairies and even as Hippolyta, The Pantaloons made the audience part of the show. Even the most reserved audience couldn’t help being swept along by the sense of mischief and fun.

By the time we reached the rude mechanicals’ play at the end (the funniest Pyramus and Thisbe I can remember seeing), the audience were in stitches – kids and grown-ups alike. Bottom’s (Neil Jennings) reaction to ‘Hippolyta’s’ audience-member boyfriend ending up on stage was very funny, the death by umbrella was perfect silliness, and the whole cast seemed as though they were having great fun, particularly in their interactions with the audience.

Another set piece that worked really well, I thought, was the scene of the lovers’ confrontation in the forest. With the two men now in love with Helena (Kelly Griffiths), and the two women at each other’s throats, the whole scene was accompanied by Puck (Christopher Smart) on guitar. It played out almost like a dance to the music – one of those barn dance style, partner-swapping dances.

As I’ve discussed in relation to other Shakespeare productions I’ve seen (namely a Georgian language production of As You Like It), the music and physicality of performance take the pressure off the audience when it comes to understanding the language. And this is something that The Pantaloons, at their best, can make look effortless.

The Pantaloons don’t just do Shakespeare for people who have studied it. They work hard to make it understandable to a modern audience. And the music, physical comedy and ad libs work alongside the verse-speaking to achieve that.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream is only on tour for a few days more, so take a look at The Pantaloons’ website to see venue details and book tickets: www.thepantaloons.co.uk

You can also read my review of their production of Sherlock Holmes here.

The Tempest - Shakespeare's Globe

I love the Globe. £5 to see a production like The Tempest is a complete bargain.

With a sold-out auditorium, the sun shining and a sense of summertime in the air, Saturday 29^th June was a brilliant afternoon to go to Shakespeare’s Globe. I was in a good mood before I went in, I laughed a lot during the performance, and the just-under-three-hour running time flew by without my feet aching at all.

I don’t exactly know where to begin with writing about this production, because it just hung together so beautifully as a whole. It almost seems a shame to pull out any particular bits. There wasn’t a single weak link in the cast and the mixture of humour and poignancy was perfectly balanced.

I’m not sure I’ve seen a production of The Tempest that was this funny before. Right from the start – where the actor playing Trinculo (Trevor Fox) came on to remind people to turn their mobile phones off and told us that the afternoon’s production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream would be starting shortly – a teasing, light-hearted tone was set. And this carried on throughout the afternoon. Even Miranda and Ferdinand – characters who can often be a bit insipid – were laugh-out-loud funny as played by Jessie Buckley and Joshua James in this production.

But then there were moving moments too: the final speech by Prospero (Roger Allam); the halting way Ariel (Colin Morgan) asked if Prospero loved him; the petals falling from the rafters during the wedding masque. I actually saw people picking up some of these tissue paper petals and taking them home as souvenirs.

The music, too, was really effective in conjuring that idea of an isle full of noises (a description familiar to everyone now as part of the Olympics ceremony speech). From the unaccompanied singing in parts to the way music came from unidentified parts of the auditorium – even to the noisy aircraft flying overhead – it all contributed to the feeling that the language being spoken by the human characters was overlaid on top of this ‘natural’ state and was almost usurping the place of music on the island.

That reading would certainly fit the rest of the plot, which is largely concerned with usurping in one form or another. I’m trying to resist going into a deeper analysis of the text of The Tempest (postcolonialism, language, the place of magic – all that kind of stuff). But I will just say that the major themes I took away from this particular production were all to do with power and redemption.

A few other bits of flotsam and jetsam before I finish: the model ship ‘sailing’ over the audience at the beginning really reminded me of Bristol Old Vic’s production of Swallows and Amazons a year or so ago; Sam Cox’s Stephano reminded our group variously of Bill Nighy and John Cleese in his mannerisms and silly walks; and – as someone said of Jessie Buckley’s post I'd Do Anything career as the audience traipsed out of the Globe at the end – ‘well, that was better than Oliver’!

To me, watching The Tempest felt like watching a production from Mark Rylance’s heyday at this theatre. Especially with the jig at the end. It never feels like a proper Globe production unless there’s a jig at the end.

As You Like It - Marjanashvili Theatre at Shakespeare's Globe

There were a few things that affected my enjoyment of As You Like It by Georgia’s Marjanashvili Theatre at Shakespeare’s Globe on 7th May. It was a midweek afternoon and there weren’t many people in the audience; I was starting a cold; and there was a rather annoying tall woman who – despite the ample space in the Yard – somehow managed to stand right in the way wherever she moved. (Note to tall people at the Globe: if you choose a space and stick to it then shorter people can arrange themselves around you more easily).

That’s not to say I didn’t enjoy this Georgian language version of As You Like It. I did – it was charming, with some sweet ideas and amusing moments. But I was left with the feeling that I’d have enjoyed it more had it been in English – and this is not something I would have said about the multilingual Venus and Adonis I’d seen a few days previously. (See my Venus and Adonis review here: http://somethinglikereviews.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/venus-and-adonis-isango-ensemble-at.html).

Without the English scene synopses, and without some prior knowledge of As You Like It, I suspect I would have been rather lost in this production. As it was, there were times – in the wordier scenes – when the company felt the need to distract us by using their framing ‘off-stage’ narrative to provide physical comedy to keep us entertained. Of course this did the trick, but I wasn’t sure how I felt about being distracted from the ‘on-stage’ plot in this way.

As has been discussed recently by Nicholas Hytner, there’s that moment at the beginning of a Shakespeare play when you have no idea what the actors are talking about. Usually, your ear will tune in and you’ll soon be able to more or less follow. And the bits that are trickier to follow – well, that’s where the acting and direction become even more important in conveying meaning.

With these Globe to Globe productions, the visiting companies have this issue throughout their performances, as your ear just doesn’t tune in to a foreign language. Venus and Adonis, I thought, handled it very well. The live music, the choreography, the sharing of roles, even the different languages used – all of these helped to tell the story to the audience without the help of any translation.

But then, maybe it was a simpler story to tell. As You Like It can be a bit confusing even in English – lots of characters, entanglements, cross-dressing – so it’s no wonder that some of the intricacies of the plot got lost here. The emotions of the characters were beautifully conveyed – especially the moments where characters fell in love (the lingering looks, the leaves as confetti, the little ‘ding’ on the triangle) – but the causes and consequences of these emotions were not so clear.

So while there were moments where the story came alive, for me the language was a barrier in a way that it simply wasn’t when watching Venus and Adonis.

As I said, there were a few things that affected my appreciation of this production, and perhaps if I’d seen it on a different day I’d have enjoyed it more. If you had a different experience of seeing this As You Like It, let me know by leaving a comment below, or by contacting me on Twitter @SomethingLike_A.

Venus and Adonis - Isango Ensemble at Shakespeare's Globe

I didn’t know much about Venus and Adonis before I went to see it. I knew that it was a poem rather than a play, but while I’d heard the names of Venus and Adonis, I didn’t really know their story.

What I did know was that this South African production had been well-received at last year’s Globe to Globe festival, and that it was one of four international productions that had been invited back this year.

But I didn’t really know what I was going to be seeing when I went along to Shakespeare’s Globe on the afternoon of Saturday 4^th May.

The Isango Ensemble’s Venus and Adonis was performed in six languages (one of which was English). The programme, as they do when you go to see a ballet, included a synopsis of the plot so that the audience could follow what was going on – but actually the company told the story so well on stage that this was hardly needed.

For me, this production was all about the strong women. The role of Venus was passed between the women of the company, with each actress bringing a different quality to the part as Venus tried everything she could to entice Adonis. What’s that Motown song? The one with the line ‘I’m gonna use every trick in the book / I’ll try my best to get you hooked.’ That’s what the multiple manifestations of Venus seemed to be doing.

And while the women had a glorious time taking centre stage, the men made up the ensemble. I know the Globe are somewhat constrained by the parts Shakespeare wrote for women, but I couldn’t help thinking how unusual it was to see women so strongly central to a piece on this stage. And I don’t know if this was deliberate casting or not, but the women were physically more substantial than most of the men too. When Adonis walked through the audience in the Yard shortly before the interval, I was surprised to see that he was not much taller than me (and I’m what’s euphemistically known as ‘petite’).

Overall, this was a joyful production, with traditional African music and dance combining with a European operatic style to unique effect. While full of humour and vitality, there were also parts that were scary (Death, whose eye you were almost afraid to catch), and very moving (Venus’ lament towards the end of the piece). Sometimes the audience in the Yard alongside me was bouncing along to the music; other times it was so still and quiet it felt like everyone was holding their breath at once.

One of the wonderful things about the Globe is the proximity to the performers, and the actors in the Isango Ensemble were unafraid to look the audience right in the eye. I remember seeing Thom Yorke (of Radiohead) perform at a festival once, and he did something similar. When Thom Yorke – or a South African Venus – is singing, and they catch your eye and hold your gaze for a moment, there’s something spell-binding about it. And I think both audiences – at the music festival and at the Globe – had a similar feel, as if we were all under some sort of enchantment.

Adonis may not have fallen for Venus’s charms, but I have a feeling the rest of the Globe did.