Little Eyolf

by Henrik Ibsen

seen at the Alemida Theatre on 17 December 2015

The play is directed by Richard Eyre, in a new adaptation by the director based on a literal translation by Anne and Karin Bamborough. It features Jolyon Coy as Alfred Allmers, Lydia Leonard as his wife Rita, Eve Ponsonby as his sister Asta, Sam Hazeldine as Bjarne Borgheim, Eileen Walsh as the Woman (the so-called 'Rat Wife'), and Adam Greaves-Neal (in this performance) as Eyolf (the son of Alfred and Rita). The set is designed by Tim Hatley and lit by Peter Mumford.

At eighty intense minutes, played without a break, this is a distillation of an already comparatively short play in which a married couple, drifting apart in unhappiness and recrimination even before the catastrophe which concludes the first act, are stretched to breaking point by the accidental drowning of their crippled young son Eyolf. 

Antony and Cleopatra

by William Shakespeare

filmed live performance from Shakespeare's Globe Theatre seen on 18 June 2015

This 2014 production was directed by Jonathan Munby and stars Eve Best as Cleopatra, Clive Wood as Mark Antony, Jolyon Coy as Octavius Caesar and Phil Daniels as Enobarbus.

The play criss-crosses the ancient world, from Egypt (Alexandria) to Rome, Sicily and the western shores of Greece (Actium), and dramatises the tumultuous relationship between Cleopatra, the last Ptolemaic ruler of Egypt, and Mark Antony, one of the three Roman leaders whose triumvirate was established after the wars following the death of Julius Caesar. The triumvir Lepidus is the weakest of the three, and so the military and political struggle for dominance in Rome becomes intensified in the personal animosity between Antony and the young Octavius Caesar.