Globe All Seasons

Given how tough recent years have been for young actors who might normally be looked at for roles like Cordelia, it does feel just a tad selfish for MT to snaffle those roles for herself at a time when she has been (and continues to be) a salaried Artistic Director.

She is also, I would contend, too old for Cordelia.

And yes, the messing with H8 feels absolutely unnecessary. I don't see what we will gain from having Queen Henry

I am not keen on ADs who direct either.

Your job is to run the organisation, to show artistic leadership

Running an individual production or starring in one takes you away from that.

Just because everyone does it doesn't make it right.

Norris at the NT would not be facing the storm he is right now if he had just run the company rather than writing and directing an ill conceived musical

The same can be said of the RSC leadership. I acknowledge that recent months have been personally very difficult for Doran. But before that his leadership was lacking but he still kept directing.

When you take over a company you should set aside acting or directing and focus on leading. You are only there for a short part of your career.

The ‘Merchant’ of Venice is almost a concept isn’t it? The play is all about commodifying human experience. Bassanio needs dosh to go get Portia who has been made an object of her father’s will and is to be ‘sold/awarded tho’ nice touch that the man she gets isn’t swayed by the dosh on offer, or is he? Portia has to give him a mighty big hint which casket to choose.  And so it goes on. Shylock bemoans the loss of a daughter and sets that against the loss of the ring which was given to him by his beloved wife, so circles of money and affection and which wins out? Antonio is I suppose, the actual physical merchant who gives money to keep friendship ( love?) but who ends up with nobody and the idea of the money being turned into flesh says it all… I’m not a huge fan of this play. We did it in school - I was 14- and I can remember the teacher telling us very firmly that Shakespeare was not antisemitic. I agree with that but it does take some energy to maintain that view unless the production is sensitive and unless you’ve see Marlowe’s Jew of Malta which is full on, go kill the Jews kind of stuff. The play does need a revamp, fresh eyes, so let’s hope this is it. 

King Lear with Kathryn Hunter, directed by Helena Kaut-Howson. Mmmm. Saw King Lear with same actress, same director at The Young Vic in the mid 1990's . It was truly terrible. Woefully under-cast in places, inept staging, odd ideas ( Lear pushed around the stage in a bath-tub...), poorly spoken. Any yet - the reviews were, for the most part, glowing. The production was often referred to as 'Mid-European' ( whatever that means) in the reviews, which seemed a way of excusing ineptitude. Be interesting to see if the same actor/director team can make a success of it this time - and how lucky they are to have found a theatre willing to give them a second chance.

Hunter is theatrical marmite. You either adore or despise her acting. I have found very little middle ground.

Personally I find her too idiosyncratic to buy into her performances. Just too mannered for my tastes.

I saw her play Cleopatra. Not great.

Well Henry VIII is pretty puerile (gigantic gold inflatable penises, Henry VIII pulling his boxers down and sitting on a toilet onstage, and characters played by giant teddy bears) which would be fine but it seems to have little resemblance to the actual play.

Baffled by the writer’s insistence on shoehorning as many famous lines and speeches from other Shakespeare plays as possible, regardless of whether they fit the context or not, as some kind of Shakespeare Greatest Hits.


Henry VIII gets famous lines from Hamlet. When Anne Boleyn decides to marry Henry she’s given Benedick’s speech from Much Ado when he discovers Beatrice is in love with him and realises he loves her too. She also has some of Lady Macbeth’s most famous lines. When Katherine of Aragon talks about her stillborn child she’s given Constance’s famous grief speech from King John.

Honestly you cannot do this. Those characters are all completely different and in different circumstances. Constance’s grief speech expresses her rage and devastation after her 12 year old son is brutally murdered. That’s a completely different thing to having a stillbirth and Constance and Katherine have very different personalities. Much Ado is a romantic comedy about two people living a pretty frivolous life realising they’re in love with each other. Anne Boleyn is manipulated into a political marriage that ends up killing her.

Every time I recognised a famous line from a different play it took me completely out of this play.

That's fascinating to read, Im slowly working my way through the canon. A few times during the performance I thought the odd line sounded familiar but as this was my first Henry V111 ...

I went in with a sense of trepidation as im finding  the histories dull. This was far from it. Loved the bright colours, like an old master with a new lease of life. Lots of cheering during the feminist speeches (and rightly so) and all in all a really good night  at the theatre especially with the forthcoming Jubilee.

This has got a wide mix of reviews, 5 stars in the Telegraph, 2 stars in the Guardian and others. I wasn't planning to see it but am interested in the same way I was for R&J last year, which also polarised reviewers.

At least they did it. Doran simply omitted it from his “complete” cycle of plays that has just finished and it is one of the very few Shakespeare plays the NT has never done in its entire history. It has a large cast and no other company are likely to stage it. So, we’ll have to wait 15+ years for the next Globe production.

It's the oddest ending isn't it. I saw it a couple of weeks ago and was told by people I was with who'd already seen it that the ending had people so baffled that people in the know were having to start the clapping as no one could tell if it had finished or not. No one I know has managed to come up with a reason for cutting the end as it is. I thought it weak, the leads didn't sell it for me which is a bit of a problem and there is so much doubly up it's rather confusing. For me the highlight was Caesar's death and the capacity of the fake blood to shoot out over the front five rows.

But it can be made into an interesting evening, if only for aficionados.  I remember the very good Greg Doran production in the mid-90s with Paul Jesson and Jane Lapotaire.