King John

by William Shakespeare

seen at the Temple Church (Middle Temple) on 15 April 2015

Shakespeare's Globe's first production of 'King John' is being performed at various historically relevant locations before coming to the Globe itself in the summer. The Temple Church, located in the Middle Temple which supported John during the baronial crisis of 1215, is particularly evocative as one of the characters in the play (the Earl of Pembroke) is actually buried there.

The production, directed by James Dacre, features Jo Stone-Fewings as King John, Alex Waldmann as the Bastard, Barbara Marten as Queen Eleanor, Tanya Moodie as Constance, Laurence Belcher as Prince Arthur and Mark Meadows as Hubert.  

The audience enters the Round Church - the image of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem - to find monks chanting around the figure of King John lying in state on a catafalque, in imitation of the effigy in Worcester Cathedral (a copy of which is nearby). However the performance takes place in the adjoining nave and chancel, where a series of rostrums has been constructed along the whole length of the central aisle and also along the transepts. The bulk of the lighting is provided by candles at floor level along the rostra and in various higher clusters, with some discreet spotlights which are at first hardly noticeable as the spring twilight streams through the windows. The general effect - chanting, lighting and quantities of incense - is dramatic and exciting.

Hamlet

by William Shakespeare

filmed live performance from the Royal Exchange, Manchester, seen 23 March 2015

Directed for the stage by Sarah Frankcom and for the screen by Margaret Williams, this production featured Maxine Peake as Hamlet with John Shrapnel as Claudius and the Ghost, Barbara Marten as Gertrude and Katie West as Ophelia.

The Manchester Royal Exchange theatre is in the round, providing an intimate and potentially claustrophobic space to play out an intense and emotionally charged production of 'Hamlet'. Interest inevitably focusses on Maxine Peake, a woman playing the main character. With close-cut pale blond hair, she can look both boyish and beautiful, but the question of the character's age is left ambiguous. Around this Hamlet, both Ophelia and Laertes are young while Horatio is a youngish man with greying hair; Gertrude is not a young woman at all, and Claudius is in late middle age at best. As for Peake's characterisation, her Hamlet is intelligent, volatile, generous to the trustworthy (Horatio and Marcella), and increasingly cold to the mercenary. She has a tendency to display anger at the outside world and Hamlet's own self-disgust by shouting, a trait which has diminishing returns and which runs the risk of being merely histrionic rather than nuanced. All in all, though, it is a powerful and commanding performance.