The Taming of the Shrew, Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre, London, July 2012

“I’ve come to wive it wealthily in Padua”, as Petruchio sings in Kiss Me Kate, but here at the Globe things seemed very different. Before the start a drunken football hooligan stumbled his way onto the stage and urinated on two plants in the audience before collapsing flat on his back. The plants walked out, and that disturbance caused someone in the cast to announce that the show was off, but nothing is quite as it seems in this hugely entertaining Shakespeare work, and Toby Frow’s production at the Globe did it proud.

Kate and Petruchio, all images Manuel Harlan

The drunken hooligan, who was of course Master Sly, eventually turned into Petruchio himself, full of wit and absurdity. Looking like Don Quixote and behaving like John Cleese on a bad day, Simon Paisley Day bowled his maiden over, turning her from shrew to loving wife. As Kate herself, Samantha Spiro glowed with energy from her very first appearance, making a highly attractive, if shockingly feisty and argumentative, prospect. She even knocked the wall down when her father and sister went inside the house and left her out. But there’s much more than mere outrage here — it’s all really very funny. When Petruchio says, “Antonio, my father is deceased”, his servant Grumio kicks a bucket, to huge laughter from the audience.

Kate being tamed

And the production is very physical, with a convincing punch-up between Kate and her sister Bianca, and when their father Baptista accepts that Petruchio is the man, and raises one of his arms with one of Kate’s saying, “Tis a match!” the audience burst into spontaneous applause. Pip Donaghy made a fine Baptista, and Pearce Quigley was quietly convincing as Grumio, the butt of his master’s dangerous inclinations for mockery and fun.

When Lucentio and his servant Tranio undress to exchange clothes, the better to woo Bianca, Sly in the audience is so disgusted he walks out, reappearing as Petruchio. And then he disrobes almost completely, down to tatty boots and a dance belt, which brought cheerful laughter from the audience when he turned his back to exit the stage. Jamie Beamish was delightfully over the top as Tranio, and his brief singing interlude looked set to turn this into a musical.

The food scene was very wittily done, and when the first kiss occurs four musicians in red play for all they are worth. It was all highly entertaining, with Samantha Spiro giving a delightful account of Kate’s final speech, and looking far happier than the other two recent brides.

“Why there’s a wench, come on, and kiss me, Kate!”, and the dance at the end was beautifully choreographed by Siân Williams. A show not to be missed.

Performances continue until October 13 — for details click here.

Henry V, Globe Theatre, London, June 2012

Jamie Parker in the title role gave a superb account of a king come of age since his youthful indiscretions, and that wonderful St. Crispin’s day speech, responding to Westmorland’s wishing a few more men for the forthcoming battle of Agincourt, is delivered as if he is making it up as he goes along. In fact the whole expedition to France carries an air of unlikely providence about it, led by the king’s determination to requite the insulting gift of tennis balls from the Dauphin of France. And at one point Parker enters the audience to clap a tall chap on the upper arm and shout, “God for Harry!”

The Battle, Globe image/ Stephen Vaughan

This fine production by Dominic Dromgoole has the feel of historical authenticity, with Jonathan Fensom’s costumes admirably showing the dirt and grime of the fifteenth century, and those English crosses painted onto several tunics add to the effect. In fact the feeling of being in another time starts right at the beginning as Canterbury and Ely converse while engaged in their ablutions, washing their hands afterwards in a bowl provided by the Chorus. And when Henry’s ambassador goes to France he unrolls a family tree, elegantly made and showing descent from Edward III. These are serious moments, but interspersed with lightness that caused the audience to laugh out loud, and Sam Cox as Pistol was wonderful fun. So was Brendan O’Hea as Captain Fluellen, and Kurt Egyiawan, with his superb diction, gave an amusing spin to the grandiloquence of the Dauphin.

Pistol and Gower, Globe image/ John Haynes

Jamie Parker himself created laughter and applause near the beginning as he stopped at a good moment to allow the noise of a circling helicopter to die away. It came back and buzzed around for ten minutes, but nothing could put this performance out. We were immersed in a short period of the Hundred Years’ War, even if Brid Brennan as Chorus in the prologue regretted the inadequacy of a stage drama to represent the glory of one of the greatest battles in that war.

Katherine and Henry, Globe image/ John Haynes

But this was a team effort with fine acting that conveyed the drama exquisitely, and Olivia Ross was wonderful, both as the English boy and the French Princess Katherine, who marries Harry of England. As history tells us, their son, born the year before his father’s death became Henry VI, the last of the house of Lancaster. The Globe is surely the greatest venue for Shakespeare, particularly under the direction of Dominic Dromgoole, and this Henry V comes over with huge appeal.

Performances continue until August 26 — for details click here.

Anne Boleyn, Globe Theatre, London, July 2010

This play has a wonderful role for the eponymous heroine, and Miranda Raison portrayed her superbly as an attractive, sexy, and determined young woman, more than a match for everyone at court except Thomas Cromwell. He — the man who engineered her downfall — was played here by John Dougall as sure-footed and ruthless, ready to abuse his power as he saw fit.

Miranda Raison as Anne Boleyn, photo by Manuel Harlan

The story is that he destroys Anne before she can warn the king about his maladministration of funds from the dissolution of the monasteries. But hadn’t the king tired of her? Didn’t he find Jane Seymour an attractive alternative to a wife who failed to produce a son? If so this play showed no attraction of the king towards Jane Seymour. She appeared only to be a tool of Cromwell, put in at the last minute, and the king’s affections for Anne never seemed to diminish. Yes, it may well be true that had Anne produced a son her position would have been impregnable, and yes this play did show that the birth of a deformed baby was an important factor, but it seemed as if the king’s role was subservient to that of Cromwell, which was odd. Did Anne really meet William Tyndale, during a journey he made secretly to England? In this play she met him twice, but the second meeting was unconvincing. Tyndale’s acolytes were very rude to her, yet she kept pleading with them. Surely a woman as shrewd as Anne, brought up with the intrigues of the French court, would have had little patience with deliberate insults, and backed out of an impossible situation.

Act I built up a steady momentum, and I liked Anne’s announcement of a fifteen minute intermission as she scuttled off to the bedroom with the king, but Act II suddenly transported us nearly seventy years into the future. All at once we were faced with James VI of Scotland, successor to Anne’s daughter Queen Elizabeth. And then the play switched unpredictably between past and future. History tells us that Anne was beheaded at the Tower of London, and some say that her ghost walks there still. Perhaps it does, but did James I of England see it, as he did in this play by Howard Brenton, directed by John Dove? At one level we seemed to be at a history lesson, but with so many laughs for the audience I could no longer to take it seriously.

James Garnon played a wittily serious James VI — he was after all a highly educated man whose intellect was often underrated — and Anthony Howell portrayed a virile and attractive Henry VIII. In the recent Globe production of Shakespeare’s Henry VIII, Cardinal Wolsey showed immense gravitas, before having the ground cut from under him by Anne Boleyn, but here Colin Hurley played him as an irascible weakling. Perhaps that was the intention, but the contrast between the two plays was ill judged, unless we are supposed to take them as fictions bearing little resemblance to history. I very much liked Sam Cox as Dean Lancelot Andrewes, and Peter Hamilton Dyer as William Tyndale, and I loved the costumes by Hilary Lewis. Anne’s dresses were glorious, and Miranda Raison’s smouldering sex appeal and assertive shrewdness in that role was by far the most vital thing about this play.