Cyrano de Bergerac (revisited)

by Edmond Rostand

seen last the Noel Coward Theatre on 19 August 2026

It was interesting to experience a second visit to this RSC production currently in London. In June I was in the Royal Circle, some distance from the stage and looking down on it (from excellent seats). This time I was in the fourth row of the Stalls, giving an entirely different exposure to the staging.

Since the play opened with a "warm up" for the audience we in the stalls were necessarily more involved from the start, and in general the theatrical experience was more involving at close quarters. Also, knowing in advance how the opening worked, it was less confusing at it turned out not to be essential to know who everyone was in order to enjoy the proceedings. (In June I had been a bit distracted by trying to work out who these characters were in relation to Cyrano who does not appear for some time.)

Adrian Lester's performance as Cyrano remained superlative and it was of course possible to notice more nuances in his delivery. It turned out to be well worth a second visit.

See my review for 22 June for more details on the production as a whole.

Cyrano de Bergerac

by Edmond Rostand

seen at the Noël Coward Theatre on 22 June 2026

Simon Evans directs Adrian Lester in the title role in a new version of Rostand's famous 1897 play Cyrano de Bergerac, an RSC production transferred from Stratford to the West End. The text has been adapted by Evans and Debris Stevenson. Susannah Fielding plays Roxanne, a childhood friend of Cyrano's with whom he is secretly in love, and Levi Brown plays Christian de Neuvillette, an untutored young soldier smitten by her, who asks Cyrano for help in wooing her.

The play has enormous energy due to the extrovert character of Cyrano, who defends his honour - his panache - on the slightest provocation, and sometimes seems to encourage unwary newcomers to annoy him. The opening scenes contain a dazzling example of his style in vanquishing a "foe". Intertwined with this exuberance is the love story in which Cyrano pours out his heart in the service of Christian's wooing, so that Roxane falls for the young soldier, who is sufficiently naive not to recognise his false position until fatefully late in the day.

The play (being French) was written in rhymed alexandrines, a form almost impossible to maintain convincingly in modern English. Part of the charm of this adaptation its its clever reconfiguring of the language, in which the sophisticated Cyrano and the often ditzy Roxanne often talk in rhyme, and the ridiculous Comte de Guiche (Scott Handy) spouts stilted platitudes in clunking verse, while others do not. Christian in particular speaks in a demotic Brummie accent that perfectly recasts his provincial origins for a modern British audience. The programme notes provide some interesting insights into how Evans and Stevenson went about adapting the play, taking some fascinating liberties with their material.

The theatricality of the piece is emphasised by frequent asides to the audience, and indeed there are zestful elements of pantomime in the behaviour of Cyrano's "gang" in the opening sunnier scenes. These provide a suitable contrast to the more serious developments as the men go off to war with its merciless consequences, while the final scene reaches a melancholy resolution. 

Adrian Lester's superb mastery of language and his physical bravado carry the play, all the while subtly allowing the character's fateful insecurity to flicker through the facade. All the flash and excitement creates a lifetime of missed opportunities for honesty, which leads Roxane to an explosion of anger fully justified by her friend's deceptions. 

It's a great revival, tempering the incipient sentimentality of the play's Romantic sheen with down-to-earth  stagecraft to great effect, using an utter;y different approach from the last version I saw six years ago.

The Tempest

by William Shakespeare

seen at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon on 13 June 2026

Richard Eyre directs Kenneth Branagh as Prospero with Ruby Stokes as Miranda, Amara Okereke as Ariel, Ashley Zhangazha as Caliban and Fred Woodley Evans as Ferdinand in a production designed by Bob Crowley.

A previous RSC production featuring a famous actor returning to the fold (Simon Russell Beale) made a point of using sophisticated computer technology to enhance the magical aspects of Prospero's island (see my review from 19 July 2017). In this new production, with Kenneth Branagh acting for the RSC again after many years, the stage is almost completely bare, with a large slightly raised circular platform; a backcloth allows for projections of a storm, and more tranquil island sunlight, and it is occasionally opened to reveal a further cloth put to similar uses.

The opening storm is thrillingly evoked with projected rain in a wild gale, and waves apparently surging on the stage floor, while the circular platform tilts alarmingly. A directorial decision has been made to have Prospero appear quietly before all this starts, donning mage-like robes and taking up a wand to create the storm, more like the conductor of an orchestra, since the wand was essentially a conductor's baton. Should we not be led to believe that the storm is real, until we discover with Miranda in the second scene that it has been confected by her father? It's just a little awkward to have Prospero so relentlessly visible during the storm when attention should be fully on the hapless ship's crew and passengers.

Branagh's Prospero, though almost entirely in control of all he surveys, is not particularly dictatorial; the long conversation with Miranda was without the emotional tension it sometimes has, allowing for a more genial father-daughter relationship. He has more steeliness in relation to Ariel when she provokes him, and to Caliban who is always provocative, and he pursues his plan of vengeance methodically until the moment when he (to the surprise of the three sinful men, and perhaps himself) offers forgiveness. The overall effect, though of course Branagh has a masterful command of verse-speaking, is somewhat muted in comparison with more volatile interpretations of the character in other productions.

The burgeoning love between Miranda and Ferdinand is nicely played out, and Ferdinand looks suitably sweat-bound after carrying logs for hours in the island's heat. Fred Woodley Evans did not quite have the bearing of a prince, but he was an engaging young man struck suddenly with love for a dazzling young woman.

Stephano and Trinculo representing the low-life of the court were suitably sozzled and clownish, but Caliban's initial subservience to them perhaps strained credulity since he was not portrayed as an almost inarticulate monster. This production chose instead to emphasise that Caliban had in fact been deprived of what he may legitimately have thought of as his inheritance by the arrival of the more powerful Prospero (though this can't be a matter of simple colonialism or enslavement, since Caliban and his mother were also arrivals on the island, not natives of it).

Ariel was continually airborne as befits her name; this required Amara Okereke to be attached to a trapeze-like mechanism on which she swooped into view and disappeared again at the highest level of the stage. This was effective to begin with, but ran the risk of seeming too mechanical a device when used throughout the performance. Ariel's wary respect for Prospero, and his wary affection for the spirit, were poignantly expressed on several occasions when she reached down and he reached up so that their hands almost touched.

The relations between Prospero, Ariel and Caliban are mysterious, and there is plenty of scope for interpreting them in different ways. Here, the matter of Ariel's freedom was given a most unusual twist: as Prospero finally freed the spirit she was released from her trapeze and put her feet on the ground - where she did not know how to walk: freedom, it seemed, would be quite a challenge. As far as Caliban is concerned, the most derogatory references to him by Prospero were cut, and the character always had a certain quiet dignity.

There was more: the great Epilogue speech is usually given directly to the audience as Proposer begs for his own freedom to depart and claims that it is dependent on the audience's applause - the character almost disappearing as the actor breaks the fourth wall. Here, Branagh almost exclusively addressed Ariel and Caliban, asking for their indulgence, and he left them alone on the stage, regarding each other in silence, wondering what to make of their "brave new world" - an extraordinary conclusion to a thought-provoking production.

I was not convinced by every aspect of Eyre's and Branagh's work on this play, but it is a salutary reminder that The Tempest is no straightforward drama. It's the sixth time I have posted a review of the play, and on each occasion there are new insights to ponder.

The BFG

adapted by Tom Wells and Jenny Worton from Roald Dahl's story

seen at the Chichester Festival Theatre on 21 March 2026

Daniel Evans directs John Leader as the BFG with a supporting company of actors and puppeteers in an imaginative staging of Roald Dahl's popular children's story extolling the virtues of friendship for all, from orphans to untypical giants and even the Queen of England. The production is a joint venture by the Chichester Festival Theatre, the RSC and Singapore's Esplanade Theatre on the Bay, with the blessing of the Roald Dahl Story Company.

The difficulty in staging a play concerning humans and giants is the question of scale, a problem that besets everything from pantomime (Jack and the Beanstalk) to Wagner's opera Das Rheingold. In this story the challenge is compounded by having humans, a small giant (the titular BFG, albeit his initials stand for "Big Friendly Giant") and regular-sized large giants - a three-fold issue of scale rather than the usual two-fold issue. In a versatile set designed by Vicki Mortimer, the problem is solved by the imaginative use of puppets. At times we see the child Sophie, her friend Kimberley, and the Queen and her court, from an ordinary human perspective, and if the BFG is present he is represented by a large-scale puppet manipulated by three puppeteers. Sometimes we see things from the BFG's perspective: John Leader is on stage and the humans are represented by small marionettes; the threatening regular giants are themselves large-scale puppets. Dizzyingly, on occasion we see actors portraying the human-eating large giants, while the BFG is a small marionette and the child Sophie is a tiny doll.

The staging is brilliantly effective, allowing the story to proceed at a headlong pace with no confusion. Children in the audience are enthralled (though one small voice behind me asked with incipient disappointment at the first blackout "is that the end?" - of course it wasn't) while the adults marvel at the ingenuity. The cast - even the two child actors for Sophie and Kimberley - handle all the logistical challenges with aplomb, and the paean to friendship, ludicrous though many of its narrative details are, rolls forward with unstoppable energy, enlivened by ridiculous word-coinages and a final explosion of fart jokes. 

Ben and Imo

by Mark Ravenhill

seen at the Orange Tree Theatre Richmond on 8 May 2025

Erica Whyman directs Samuel Barnett as Benjamin Britten and Victoria Yeates as Imogen Holst in a production transferred from the RSC's Swan Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon of Mark Ravenhill's new play exploring the beginning of the long working relationship between the composer and his 'musical assistant'.

Imogen Holst, the daughter of the composer Gustav Holst, famously denigrated her own skills as a composer, and spent her life dedicated to the idea that music should be available to all, and that all who wanted to should participate in it. She encouraged music-making among evacuees in the West Country during the Second World War, taught at Dartington Hall for nine years, and was encouraged to go to Aldeburgh in 1952 to assist Benjamin Britten while he composed Gloriana, an opera commissioned by the new Arts Council to be performed at the Coronation Gala on 8 June 1953. Britten had agreed to the commission (out of a sense of duty, it is claimed in this play), but never found composing as easy as it had been when he was a teenager, and he resented the interference of others outside his immediate circle. 

Holst arrived in Aldeburgh with virtually no luggage and rented a room above a shop, intending to stay for less than a year. She spent the rest of her life based there, dying in 1984. She not only assisted Britten in the preparation of the opera, but continued to work with him for more than a decade afterwards (despite strains in their relationship) and was a significant contributor to the success of the annual Aldeburgh Festival until she retired in 1977.

The two personalities, so very different from each other, make for an intense two-handed play. Samuel Barnett captures Britten's curious mixture of arrogance, self-assurance and neediness, while Victoria Yeates portrays Holst's free-spiritedness and verve while hinting at the insecurities and loneliness which they mask. Inevitably, under the pressure of the commission, sparks fly despite her admiration for his genius and his resentful realisation that he needs someone like her to help with his work. In an explosion of anger Britten delivers some staggeringly cruel blows; the devastated Holst nevertheless stays, but with a steely announcement that she will neither forget nor forgive. 

The working relationship which brought Ben and Imo together is given its due without descending into too much technical explanation (it is never made entirely clear what Imo spends all her time doing, though there are hints of how careful she has to be not to tread on Ben's professional toes). In the meantime the personal relationship is revealed to be complex: sometimes workmanlike, sometimes extremely playful, sometimes warm, and yet at times quite abusive. What I found fascinating was that for all Britten's defensive cruelties and childish tantrums, Holst, though battered, kept rising to the occasion due to the force of her own character and her profound belief in the value of what she was doing. The personal cost to her may have been high, but she was determined not to let it crush her.

On a purely contingent level, the performance was remarkable for two unwanted interruptions. Soon after it began someone's phone rang (despite clear requests to ensure that such a thing would not happen), and Victoria Yeates, in her imperious Imo voice, asked for it to be dealt with: quite bizarre to hear a person supposedly in 1952 address such a modern irritation. Then a few minutes later the whole performance was suspended for the best part of ten minutes while a technical problem with the sound (I think) was addressed - although it may have been that the revolve was not working since it only turned when the performance resumed. The professionalism of the two actors in these trying circumstances was exemplary.

The play was originally performed on a thrust stage; here, with the audience on all four sides of the acting space, an adjustment had been made by the designer Sutra Gilmour, whereby Ben's piano was on a revolve in the centre, which periodically turned 90 degrees so that the actors could plausibly face in different directions during the performance. This in turn meant that all the static furniture - a music-score carrel, a standing lamp, a small trolley, a small bookcase and an armchair - had to be moved appropriately by the two actors. It was very well done.

The Mirror and the Light

by Hilary Mantel and Ben Miles

seen at the Gielgud Theatre on 17 November 2021

This Royal Shakespeae Comany production, directed by Jeremy Herrin, is an adaptation of Hilary Mantel's novel of the same name, the third in her account of the life and career of Thomas Cromwell. The first two novels had been adapted by Mike Poulton for the RSC in 2014 (before I began my blog). Ben Miles as Cromwell and Nathaniel Parker as Henry VIII reprise their roles from the earlier plays, and are both excellent.

The novel is long (by far the longest of the three) and complex, as the final two years of Cromwell's life were full of intrigue and interest. Mantel also imagined his interior life, with many episodes of recollection from his boyhood and youth elaborating on scenes glimpsed in the early parts of Wolf Hall (the first book). Most of the introspection has perforce been stripped out, though glanced at in the play by the occasional appearance of Cromwell's father Walter and his principal mentor Cardinal Wolsey as ghostly figures, an idea that seems at times rather too camp to be effective.

The political struggles are wisely and competently simplified to concentrate on the demise of Henry's third queen Jane Seymour and the negotiations for the fourth marriage to Anna of Cleves. Famously this foundered on the king's displeasure at actually meeting his bride, but Mantel mischievously proposes that she also was less than enamoured at the unheralded arrival of a rather overbearing and by this time physically less than attracitve man. All this was well played in a versatile setting designed by Christopher Oram (inherited directly from the previous adaptations).

I have read the novel recently, and felt that this added some richness to the experience of watching the play, since some fleeting references resonated with my memories of the more extended treatment in the book. The play (and the book) suffer from a lack of tension since the outcome is hardly unknown; this inevitalby reduces the suspense. Of course, one could say the same thing about Shakespeare's history plays, though the plays in the more mature tetralogy (Richard II, the two parts of Henry IV and Henry V) are arguably more memorable for the investigation of character than for mere historical information. I am not sure that these Cromwell plays will prove of such long-lasting interest. There was, for example, no attempt to revive the first two plays to coincide with the arrival of this last part, though maybe such an ambitious project would have been considered were it not for the deleterious effects of the pandemic on theatrical life.

The Merry Wives of Windsor

by William Shakespeare

seen by live streaming from Stratford-upon-Avon on 12 September 2018

Fiona Laird directs David Troughton as Sir John Falstaff, Rebecca Lacey as Mistress Page and Beth Cordingley as Mistress Ford in a new RSC production of Shakespeare's domestic comedy cleverly designed by Lez Brotherston in a nebulous time (Tudor ruffs and slinky trouser suits) and a place very clearly east of Windsor: in fact, Essex.

In the pre-performance talk the director admitted to having cut some 23% of the text - the tedious Latin jokes, and any other bits of business that she and the cast felt were not sufficiently funny, certain, apparently, that the play was constructed in an unseemly rush and that the consummate showman Shakespeare would have approved of any amount of editorialising. Some topical references were included (at least one to Brexit), and a fair amount of comic business over and above the classic scene of the laundry basket, here transposed to a wheelie bin. (But then, considering much was made of the smell of the rubbish in the bin, why did no-one behave as if Sir John himself smelled awful even though his clothes were stained?) 

One of the cast reminded us that it was fatal to 'ask' the audience for a laugh - audience laughter had to be earned by taking the characters seriously and allowing the comedy of the situation to do its own work. I am not sure that relying on the stereotypes of Essex derived from a popular TV show actually followed this advice consistently. Some of the cast were so broadly 'Essex' that it was almost impossible to see a human being behind the screeching, though maybe the hidden microphones were flattening out any aural subtlety that the live audience could appreciate.

With these reservations inevitably affecting the overall performance, it was nevertheless an amusing production at many points, largely saved by the fact that David Troughton magnificently followed the precept that his character must take himself seriously; it was only thus that his pomposity could be hilarious, his comeuppances richly deserved yet not painful to watch, and the visual gags about his girth (and his absurd codpieces) amusing rather than distasteful. In the meantime the cod Frenchman (Jonathan Cullen as Doctor Caius) was perhaps more successfully funny than the cod Welshman (David Acton as Sir Hugh Evans), and the rather callow Fenton (Luke Newberry) was gloriously maladroit until Anne Page (Karen Fishwick) thought to give him spectacles. But the young lovers were easily swamped by the mayhem created by the merry wives, while George Page (Paul Dodds) was a cipher and Frank Ford (Vince Leigh) rather overdrawn in his jealousy - again, slapstick tended to triumph over subtlety. 

I'm not sufficiently familiar with the text to know whether the substantial cuts were responsible for these imbalances; at too may times there seemed to be too much shouting, as if only comedy of the broadest brush could be relied on to see everyone through. On the other hand, the material itself is managed with a broad brush, so perhaps one there is no other way to do it in order to get the most out of it.

Imperium

Adapted by Mike Poulton from the Cicero novels of Robert Harris

seen at the Gielgud Theatre on 4 July 2018

Gregory Doran directs Richard McCabe as Cicero and Joseph Kloska as his secretary Tiro, with a supporting cast of twenty-three, in a two part adaptation of Robert Hrris's three Cicero novels (Imperium, Lustrum and Dictator) though most of the material from the first novel has not been used. The two stage parts are called Conspirator and Dictator, and each contains three plays: Cicero, Catiline and Clodius in the first, and Caesar, Mark Antony and Octavian in the second. From this it can be seen that the first play deals with Cicero's consulship (63 BCE) and the subsequent and controversial suppression of Catiline's conspiracy to overthrow the legitimate government of Rome (if that is what it was), while the second deals with Caesar's assassination in 44 BCE and its aftermath up to the death of Cicero in the following year.

Antony and Cleopatra

by William Shakespeare

seen at the Barbican Theatre on 6 January 2018

Part of the RSC's Rome MMXVII season, this play is directed by Iqbal Khan and features Josette Simon as Cleopatra, Antony Byrne as Mark Antony, Ben Allen as Octavius Caesar and Andre Woodall as Enobarbus. It is interesting, but in the event justified, that the characters common to both Julius Caesar and Antony and Cleopatra - namely, Antony himself and the other triumvirs Octavius and Lepidus - are played by different actors in the two productions, though many of the supporting cast appear in both.

Robert Innes Hopkins designed both productions, giving a sense of visual unity while expanding the palette, as it were, to include the Egyptian scenes, their general sensuousness signified by a large draped curtain to offset the sterner vertical and horizontal lines of Rome, and the occasional appearance of large cat statues. But, with a different director, even if the visual presentation was broadly related, the overall approach was inevitably different, most notably in the sound world in which the brass and percussion of the earlier play are here supplemented by (electric) guitar and saxaphone. 

Julius Caesar

by William Shakespeare

seen at the Barbican Theatre on 6 January 2018

Part of the RSC's Rome MMXVII season, this play is directed by Angus Jackson and features Alex Waldmann as Brutus, Martin Hutson as Cassius, Andrew Woodall as Julius Caesar, James Corrigan as Mark Antony and Jon Tarcy as Octavius Caesar.

The setting is notionally Classical (columns, and a foreboding statue of a lion mauling a horse, feature at the back of the stage in the first half, rather than any realistic evocation of sites such as the theatre of Pompey where Caesar's assassination actually took place; rough indications of open landscape for the second half - designer Robert Innes Hopkins); the costumes also feature togas and tunics, but also very un-Roman red calf-length trousers.

This helps establish the historical background, and allows for very fine visual effects when, for example, the conspirators move from being a group of symmetrically placed almost-statues to a mob of baying assassins. It also gives added effect to Julius Caesar's stately arrogance, while allowing us to see the human frailty it is meant to conceal (a certain elderly deafness as well as hints of the epilepsy referred to by Cassius). Andrew Woodall shows us the arrogance of the man who evidently will not need much more persuading to become a king.

Queen Anne

by Helen Edmundson

seen at the Theatre Royal Haymarket on 8 August 2017

Natalie Abrahami directs Emma Cunniffe as Queen Anne and Romola Garai as Sarah Churchill in this new RSC production transferred from Stratford. It follows the difficult relationship between the two women from the last years of William III's reign (when Anne was heir to the throne) until about 1708 soon after the death of her husband Prince George of Denmark. When Anne becomes Queen, England is soon involved in a European War, while domestically the Queen sees the 1707 Act of Union between England and Scotland as a personal triumph.

Anne, insecure and ill-educated, is seen by many as biddable and stupid, but she has a clear sense of her own entitlement and her duty, even as those around her try to manipulate her for their own political advantage. Her ambitious friend from their youth, Sarah Jennings, has married the brilliant soldier John Churchill - Earl, eventually to be Duke, of Marlborough - and her own driving ambitions conjoined with his make her dangerously impatient with the dynamics of being the special friend of a woman she has come to despise, but who is nonetheless the monarch.

The Tempest

by William Shakespeare

seen at the Barbican Theatre on 19 July 2017

Gregory Doran directs Simon Russell Beale as Prospero, Jenny Rainsford as Miranda, Mark Quartley as Ariel and Joe Dixon as Caliban in this RSC production designed by Stephen Brimson Lewis and created with the collaboration of Intel and the Imaginarium Studios.

Two talking points were at the heart of this production: the return of Simon Russell Beale to the Royal Shakespeare Company to play Prospero after a long period of distinguished engagements elsewhere, and the use of cutting edge performance capture technology and other digital effects to enhance the presentation of Ariel and to replicate in the modern age the impact of the resplendent masques that were all the rage in the Jacobean court of the early seventeenth century. 

The Herbal Bed

by Peter Whelan

seen at the RoseTheatre, Kingston upon Thames, on 28 April 2016

This play, subtitled The secret life of Shakespeare's daughter, was written in 1996 and originally produced by the RSC. It sees its first major revival here, directed by James Dacre and featuring Emma Lowndes as Susannah Hall, Jonathan Guy Lewis as John Hall, Philip Correia as Rafe Smith, and Matt Whitchurch as Jack Lane, with Patrick Driver as the Bishop of Worcester, Charlotte Wakefield as Hester Fletcher and Michael Mears as Barnaby Goche the Vicar-General of the diocese of Worcester.

The play derives from the records in the Worcestoer consistory court of a defamation case brought by Susannah Hall (Shakespeare's daughter) against Jack Lane, who had publicly alleged that she had illicit dealings with Rafe Smith. Here, Susannah and Rafe are indeed passionately attracted to one another, but no adultery takes place. Jack's allegations are founded on supposition, jealousy and drunkenness. Although he has not actually seen the pair together, it is known by the Hall's servant Hester that Rafe left the garden precipitously one night as she was coming to warn Susannah of Lane's approach.

Doctor Faustus

by Christopher Marlowe

seen at the Swan Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon, on 6 April 2016

Maria Aberg directs Sandy Grierson and Oliver Ryan, who choose the parts of Mephistopheles and Doctor Faustus by lot at the beginning of each performance, and a company of actors in the minor parts (many of them also taking part in the concurrent production of Don Quixote). The choice depends on which match struck at the same time by the two actors is extinguished first: that actor plays Mephistopheles. (I understand that this choice is overridden on days when there is both a matinee and an evening performance, to ensure that each actor plays each part on that day.)

The costumes are modern - the two leads in white suits to begin with, though when the play itself starts, Mephistopheles provocatively wears no shirt - and the acting space of the Swan is a black floor on which Faust soon paints a pentagram in white, and a wall of plastic bubble wrap which is ripped to shreds as the magical incantations of the first scene begin to take effect. The Seven Deadly Sins are presented by Lucifer as a grotesque fashion parade; the characters at the papal court wear elaborate and exaggerated clerical garb as if they too are fantastical elements of Faustus's imagination.

Hamlet

by William Shakespeare

seen at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon, on 5 April 2016

Simon Godwin directs the RSC's first 'black' Hamlet with Paapa Essiedu as Hamlet, Tanya Moodie as Gertrude, Clarence Smith as Claudius, Cyril Nri as Polonius, Natalie Simpson as Ophelia and Hiran Abeysekera as Horatio. Only Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, even more out of their element than usual, were played by white actors as callow and tactless European visitors to Denmark re-imagined as an unspecific African state.

Don Quixote

by James Fenton based on the novel by Miguel Cervantes

seen at the Swan Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon, on 4 April 2016

This new adaptation of the famous Spanish novel commemorates the quartercentenary of Cervantes's death (in the same month as Shakespeare's death). Director Angus Jackson has assembled an excellent ensemble cast led by David Threlfall as Don Quixote and Rufus Hound as his squire Sancho Panza. James Fenton's text, and his lyrics to the songs composed by Grant Olding, capture both the whimsical absurdity of the Don's obsession with chivalry, and the pathos of his response to the 'real' world as he constantly re-interprets it under the delusion that he is a knight-errant facing sorcery and evil.

Henry V

by William Shakespeare

seen at the Barbican on 14 January 2016 (evening) as part four of 'King & Country'

This new production from the RSC is directed by Gregory Doran and designed by Stephen Brimson Lewis, with music by Paul Englishby. It features Alex Hassell as King Henry and Oliver Ford Davies as the Chorus, with Sarah Parks as Mistress Quickly, Joshua Richards as Bardolph and Fluellen, and Martin Bassindale as the Boy. As part of the commemoration of the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's death, it is being presented with Richard II and the two parts of Henry IV as a sequence entitled 'King & Country'.

The programme note helpfully suggests that this is not really a 'pro-war' play, nor an 'anti-war' play (it has been seen as both in response to contemporary crises) but rather a 'going-to-war' play. This production was neither gung-ho nor overtly critical of war, and the king was neither thoughtlessly militaristic nor unwilling to fight.

Henry IV Part Two

by William Shakespeare

seen at the Barbican on 14 January 2016 (afternoon) as part three of 'King & Country'

This revival of the RSC's 2014 production is directed by Gregory Doran and designed by Stephen Brimson Lewis with music by Paul Englishby. It features Jasper Britton as King Henry IV, Alex Hassell as Prince Hal, Anthony Sher as Falstaff, Sam Marks as Ned Poins, and Oliver Ford Davies as Justice Shallow. As part of the commemoration of the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's death, it is being presented with Richard II, Henry IV Part One and Henry V as a sequence entitled 'King & Country'.

Considering that the play has a very similar structural pattern to that of Henry IV Part One it is striking how different the tone is. The prolonged 'Eastsheap' scene with Doll Tearsheet (Emma King) and Mistress Quickly (Sarah Parks, played with a distractingly broad accent) seems more hectic, and Falstaff here even more selfish, while the king is far weaker physically, and the scenes between Falstaff and Justice Shallow, the erstwhile companion of his youth, are tinged with a melancholy regret for the passage of time (these have no direct parallel in the earlier play). In the meantime Prince Hal is brought to realise that slumming it with the likes of Ned Poins is by no means a meeting of equals, while his relationship with his father barely survives a deathbed misunderstanding. 

Henry IV Part One

by William Shakespeare

seen at the Barbican on 13 January 2016 as part two of 'King & Country'

This revival of the RSC's 2014 production is directed by Gregory Doran and designed by Stephen Brimson Lewis with music by Paul Englishby. It features Jasper Britton as King Henry IV, Alex Hassell as Prince Hal, Anthony Sher as Falstaff, Sam Marks as Ned Poins, Sean Chapman as the Duke of Northumberland and Matthew Needham as Hotspur. As part of the commemoration of the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's death, it is being presented with Richard II, Henry IV Part Two and Henry V as a sequence entitled 'King & Country'.

In this production, the play begins as if exactly where Richard II left off - Henry's protestation of innocence and vow to go to the Holy Land at the end of the former play leading quite naturally into the opening speech of this play. Here, the continuity is further emphasised by the ghostly figure of the murdered king who turns away and vanishes as the play begins.

Richard II

by William Shakespeare

seen at the Barbican on 12 January 2016 as part one of 'King & Country'

This revival of the RSC's 2013 production is directed by Gregory Doran and designed by Stephen Brimson Lewis with music by Paul Englishby. It features David Tennant as King Richard, Jasper Britton as Bolingbroke, Oliver Ford Davies as the Duke of York and Julian Glover as John of Gaunt. As part of the commemoration of the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's death, it is being presented with the two Henry IV plays and Henry V as a sequence entitled 'King & Country'.

The play opens with a scene in which the king attempts to arbitrate in the quarrel between his cousin Bolingbroke and another courtier Thomas Mowbray. But his authority does not extend so far as to compel these adversaries to a reconciliation and soon the king concedes that a trial by combat must take place. In just a few altercations the fatal gap between assumed authority and personal weakness is laid bare and the train of events leading to Richard's deposition and murder is begun.