Genre: Classical and Shakespeare
Review: The Merchant of Venice
A reading of Adrian Schiller’s Shylock as probing as other great productions of the past decade; and of Sophie Melville’s nearly-rounded, brittle Portia.
Review: When We Dead Awaken
Ibsen’s elusive masterpiece is so rarely performed seeing it is an imperative. Played with such authority as here, in Norwegian and English, it’s not a luxury but a must-see.
Review: Unsanctioned/Measure 2 Measure
You must see this intriguing, ingenious and superbly acted double bill.
Review: Measure for Measure
Immerse yourself in Blanche McIntyre’s quizzical production. You’ll come nearer to this play.
Review: The Tempest
Do see this Tempest, not only subtly outstanding, but pulsing with human connectivity and warmth.
Review: Hamlet
Jumbo’s Hamlet strips out accretions and ghosts you into asking who or what Hamlet is. See it if you possibly can.
Review: Macbeth
Building out of Macbeth a recurring epic of structural violence not ended with one overthrow, sets the seal on this outstanding production.
Review: Twelfth Night
With Michelle Terry as Viola, one of the most touching and truthful Twelfth Nights I’ve seen.
Review: Romeo and Juliet
A fleet, brilliantly upending, wholly relevant take on the Verona-ready toxicity feeding male violence and young depression
Review: A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Outdoors, this has grown prodigously. Some actors give transcendent performances up there with London’s finest. Out in the slant air this proves magical.
Review: A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Even more than 2019, a carnival riot of joy – with enough misdirection to evoke moonshine
Review: A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Some actors give transcendent performances up there with London’s finest. Out in the slant air this will now prove magical.
Review: Bard In The Yard : The Scottish Play
Will’s got a nasty case of writer’s block and is in desperate need of ideas and people to help him.
Review: The Merchant of Venice
This production needs a run. It’s potentially a great interpretation.
Review: Sweet William
Naturally enriched by living with Shakespeare Michael Pennington unearths local habitations and names for him.
Review: Troy Story
Again the most educative stand-up and a thrilling presentation. Oh and bloody funny on war, male sexuality and the Bechdel Test.
Review: Pandora’s Jar/Honour Among Thebes
The most educative stand-up and a thrilling presentation. Oh and bloody funny on the tragedies.
Review: The Mahabharata
A dramatic sense of arrival the way the Odyssey here ended: a clash of even vaster ferocity, keening, treachery, humour, mischievousness, sacrifice and grief, joy and the agency of women.
Review: The Rape of Lucrece
The definitive way to experience this troublingly great, disturbingly unresolved poem
Review: Icarus
After all the gods and their lack of choice, we come to the final instalment, the human dimension. Where we have one. A heartfelt, satisfying finish.
Review: Orpheus
A terrific reinvention, bringing gods and heroines up from the death of myth to an altered world.
Review: The Merry Wives of Windsor
A joyful fleet production, a more-than-rough magic. What renders OFS unique is their fearlessness: a humour and zest to tear into buried Shakespeare, read the entrails.
Review: Henry IV Part 1
Here the shadows fall the more convincingly to join with those chimes at midnight in Henry IV/2.
Review: 15 Heroines: 15 Monologues Adapted from Ovid
Groundbreaking. The smallest producing theatre in the West End through lockdown has become the largest.
Review: Troilus and Cressida
We’re privileged to see this rarely-performed work moulded by OFS. A play for our times.
Review: The Spanish Tragedy
The OFS are taking flight with the best scratch nights the Elizabethans never had.
Review: A Midsummer Night’s Dream
This surely is the greatest Dream since Peter Brook’s landmark 1970 production.
Review: The Merchant of Venice
A fleet traversal memorable for insights the company bring during and after their performance of it
Review: A Midsummer Night’s Dream
With Baum’s direction they and we discover new thresholds, new anatomies
Review: The Merry Wives of Windsor
One of the two most cogent, most fun Merry Wives of recent years.
Review: The Madness of George III
This magnificent revival poses even more urgent questions. A twitch on the thread for all of us.
Review: Coriolanus
A Coriolanus memorable for politics sinewed with personal forces: an active interrogation of democracy. And in Josie Rourke’s production Tom Hiddleston’s someone riven by intimations of his true self
Review: 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.
Review: Antony and Cleopatra
Supremely worth it to see a pair so famous weighing equal in their own balance, perhaps for the first time.
Review: Romeo and Juliet
Completeness is just one reason to cherish this clean-driven clear-headed production
Review: Twelfth Night
Tamsin Greig’s extremes as Malvolia mark the first intimations of the terrible and define this production. The ground’s shifted.
Review: The Winter’s Tale
Far more than a curate’s egg, this production reveals things we’ve never seen
Review: 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.
Review: Women Beware Women
A stylish, timely production which redefines how we experience Middleton.
Review: The Taming of the Shrew
See it and you’ll never think of the Shrew without this groundbreaking stab at the dreams of men.
Review: The Duchess of Malfi
The scalpel and scruple of class and coolness breaks into tragedy and gifts us three outstanding moments
Review: Richard III
This production could draw out the poison of being dead serious in terminal bursts of laughter
Review: As You Like It
For Lucy Phelps and Sophie Khan Levy above all, this is a joyful As You Like It.
Review: All’s Well That Ends Well
Hannah Morrish’s Helena shines in this achingly desperate, quietly beautiful production.
Review: A Midsummer Night’s Dream
This surely is the greatest Dream since Peter Brook’s landmark 1970 production.
Review: A Midsummer Night’s Dream
A carnival riot of joy – with enough misdirection to evoke moonshine
Review: As You Like It
A heartwarming revival. Jack Laskey, Bettrys Jones and Nadia Nadarajah have made a space for this As You Like It well beyond its initial moment last year.
