FringeReview UK

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FringeReview UK 2018

All’s Well That Ends Well

This is an All’s Well to believe in, and plucks, just this once, a happiness Helena so richly deserves with a husband who equally doesn’t.


Antony and Cleopatra

Supremely worth it to see these characters weighing equal in their own balance, perhaps for the first time.


Antony and Cleopatra

Supremely worth it to see a pair so famous weighing equal in their own balance, perhaps for the first time.


As You Like It

A ripping discovery, a spontaneity and transparent skin to the process makes this thrilling. An As You Like It for the moment, certainly. But a moment of change.


Believe As You List

A work rich in a few characters and poignant recognitions touching some of Massinger’s greatest. It’s the larky stoic Berecinthius though, who adds a dimension to the Caroline stage.


Doctor Faust

If this Wanamaker is hell, you should queue for two-and-a-half hours of it.


Eastward Ho!

This is one of the most exuberant and superbly orchestrated Read Not Deads I’ve seen.


Electra

As a gifted exploration of Electra’s themes and a transposition of them to 21st century values, this is as exhaustive, detailed and convincing as you’d wish.


Hamlet

In Michelle Terry’s quicksilver, quick-quipping Hamlet, much has been proved, from interpretive to gender fluidity in tragic action, that sets a privilege on being in at a beginning.


Julie

A revelatory Julie for our time.


Julius Caesar

Together with several definitive and newly-founded interpretations, it’s Hytner’s lithe political thriller that emerges by contrast as a physical assault on the senses. From out of the smoke and flashes of this outstanding production, there’s jumpings-on and off as participants run up from all sides and even jostle people out of the way.


Love’s Labour’s Lost

You really should see this.


Macbeth

There’s a visceral intent and bravery, a willingness to tear though every received nostrum, some wild use of the revolve with an admittedly frantic cast trying to catch a magic roundabout, that suggests something magnificent could be made of it all. The rationale’s an urgent one: in a post-Trump post-Brexit post-climate-refugee state we could even be looking at this world soon.


Macbeth

The one to see.


Measure for Measure

The most thoughtful and thought-provoking recreation of a Shakespeare play this year.


Medea Electronica

Like the recent Suppliants, in a very different way, Medea Electronica asks just what we mean by Greek tragedy, what our conceptions of drama without music are. An essential experience.


Othello

Othello will never quite seem the same again; that’s an achievement and a marker.


Richard II

A savage anointing, a revelatory reading.


Romeo and Juliet

This Romeo and Juliet has all the pace and heart any production, modern-dress or period, demands. Karen Fishwick’s radiant Juliet is the soul that imprints itself on it.


Romeo and Juliet

This Romeo and Juliet has all the pace and heart any production, modern-dress or period, demands. Karen Fishwick’s radiant Juliet is the soul that imprints itself on it.


Sir Thomas More

This the second RND this year easily maintains the bar set so high by Eastward Ho! It’s fleet, superbly characterised in major parts but inevitably John Hopkins takes the palm for centring a superbly-realized portrayal.


The Comedy of Errors

This is a light-footed, thump-fisted, limp-wristed and eye-poppingly uproarious production.


The Country Wife

A dazzling revival. If you don’t know the finale, with its superb resolution, this 1920s-style production is a memorable way in, with its clarity, its comedy and its last dangerous kiss. Stunning. Do see it.


The Double Dealer

I doubt if there’s ever been a production as good as this.


The Little French Lawyer

Make friends with this troubling, deeply fascinating, vitally sour play.


The Merchant of Venice

Exceptional in many things, it’s almost a classic production and definitely worth a detour for.


The Merry Wives of Windsor

Sparkling, a sassy, sexy, and sure-footed revival.


The Merry Wives of Windsor

Sparkling, a sassy, sexy, sure-footed revival. On its own terms, could it really be bettered?


The Two Noble Kinsmen

We’re looking at a bright Book of Hours. Barrie Rutter’s done it profound service, adding a warmth and agency that opens up this pageant. This is hopefully just the first of many such he’ll bring to the Globe.


The Way of the World

A triumphant revival. What’s striking isn’t just the clockwork plotting but the amplitude, even insouciant luxury Congreve allows his characters to unfold in. It comes together in this rich, endlessly self-fascinated masterpiece from a master of self-effacement.


The Wild Duck

You should be shocked.


The Winter’s Tale

If Sicilia and its dense expressive syntax could rise elsewhere, this might be altogether remarkable. As it is, enjoy its slow burn.


The Wits

Exhilarating and fresh, this comedy shows just how singular Davenant is, deserving full-scale revival. You’d go far to find as spirited and sure-footed a cast as this.


The Woman in the Moon

This superb production has shifted our sense of Lyly’s pre-eminence still further. Lyly hugely influenced Shakespeare like no other writer. Lyly remains the Globe’s Read Not Dead greatest rediscovery, and this production underscores that more fully and emphatically than even before, in unexpectedly to this bold, necessary reading.