What: All’s Well That Ends Well by William Shakespeare
Where: The Royal Shakespeare Theatre (RST), Stratford-upon-Avon
When: August 22-28 2022 (runs until late October 2022)
Who: The Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC)
William Shakespeare’s “All’s Well That Ends Well” is, they say, a problem play. Having read all the main literature on that subject, I’m still not convinced on that subject, but this I do know – the RSC’s current production of it makes it more of a problem than it needs to be.
What: Go Forth With The Shakespearience
Where: Ravenscourt Arts, Hammersmith
Who: The Shakespearience
When: May 2017
One day whilst I was in Stratford-Upon-Avon with the Royal Shakespeare Company, I woke up in my hotel room with a fairly fully formed idea for bringing Shakespeare to schools, using professional actors and musicians, and giving young people a first exposure to live theatre.
It’s now 8 years since we started working with local schools as part of their literature programme. We’ve always worked with the schools in the areas of faith and religious education but we thought as well as enhancing the teaching in those areas, we ought to give back to the community in the areas that God has gifted us in. This has meant that over those years we’ve worked on poetry workshops (with Paul Cookson), performances of Shakespeare and more recently, since Chris Jarvis has joined us in a range of other hands-on activities.
What: Julius Caesar
Where: Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-Upon-Avon
Who: Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC)
When: 4th May 2017.
This reviewer is confused
The RSC decided in their wisdom to have “press day” for both Antony & Cleopatra and Julius Caesar on the same day. Figuring that seeing two plays on one day would rather ruin the palate for the second, I decided to opt out of one. On the flip of a coin and because I prefer the “Cleopatra” play normally, I decided to come back and see Julius Caesar another day even though my review would appear later than everyone else’s and although it would mean seeing the plays out of sequence. Also, sequentially, it makes much more sense for Julius Caesar to be seen first.
Now I have to say that “Antony and Cleopatra” was horrible and the worst production i have seen from the RSC for a number of years.
Now since there is a director overseeing the four productions in the RSC’s Rome series, I estimated that this production would go in roughly the same direction as Iqbal Khan’s “Anthony and Cleopatra” and would need some fine performances to save it.
I needn’t have worried because Angus Jackson’s “Julius Caesar” is confusingly, truly excellent. Not flawless but truly, truly excellent and you would do well to see it.
We now have 7 years of Shakespeare reviews on this site – so many it can be hard to find what you’re looking for. I’ve done this handy guide to them all so you can follow the links below to any RSC production over the period. Where there has been more than one production of a particular play, they are listed separately and the date given. I’ll try to keep it updated annually.
twilightdawning 