FringeReview UK
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FringeReview UK 2016
The Chronicle History of Perkin Warbeck
This Wannamaker Read Not Dead performance of The Chronicle History of Perkin Warbeck seals the proof that T. S. Eliot was right: it’s the finest non-Shakespearean history play of the whole Elizabethan-to-Caroline canon.
Beaumont and Fletcher’s The Coxcomb is one of their finest, a sparkling yoke of two love-plots involving feminism and sexual freedom unparalleled in the period’s comedy.
The towering gender-slashing part of Vittoria demands venom and defiance as well as passion in verse. Peak delivers these with the kind of nuance in extremis that makes one wonder what more she could do with the part. As her brother Flamineo, the flame-voiced Bennett has great potential as a verse speaker, based on the rationale and clarity he brings here. The great lines at the end comprise the finest number of exits in drama.
