Review: Phaedra
Stone suggests only someone as demonstrably damaged and damaging as Helen (Phaedra), in other words a politician, might pursue self-destruction so relentlessly; and devastate so many. It’s brilliantly achieved elsewhere than with the core relationship.
Review: The Winter’s Tale
An enormously satisfying reading that happens to be groundbreaking. It’s Sean Holmes’ finest production yet.
Review: Titus Andronicus
One of the Globe’s most lucid recent productions; and the most consistently-realised aesthetic. It knows what it is: a stunningly thought-through, musically inspired production.
Review: Hakawatis Women of the Arabian Nights
Original, bawdy, exploratory, seductive and elegaic in equal measure. A Faberge egg, continually hatching.
Review: Henry V
Bracing, fresh, wholly re-thought in every line, emerging with gleaming power, menace and wit. And I defy anyone not to smile at this new take on Shakespeare’s downbeat ending.
Review: David Copperfield
A paean to live theatre; soaring seasonal spirit, struck with tenderness, joy, sorrow, plangent affirmation.
Review: Pericles
Kelly Hunter’s team have wrought a miracle of flight, realised by an outstanding cast who here at least, make us rank Pericles with Shakespeare’s other late Romances.
Review: The Seagull
A Seagull for the initiated, a meditation rather than the play itself, it’s still a truthful distillation, wholly sincere, actors uniformly excellent
Review: The Comedy of Errors
One of the most vivid, aesthetically cogent, certainly funniest OFS productions
Review: Classic!
A world record attempt at 42 classic texts in one go that provides joy in an uneven presentation.
Review: The Tempest
A joyous production, that without its gimmicky close, could certainly furnish a way in for many
Review: Jack Absolute Flies Again
What Richard Bean and Oliver Chris manage is homage, both to Sheridan’s shade, his early bawdy, and despite anything a memorial to those who laughed at themselves to death. A must-see.
Review: Much Ado About Nothing
This isn’t the most revelatory Much Ado, but the most consummate and complete for a while.
Review: A Midsummer Night’s Dream
An exciting sense of being at the cusp of a new generation. There’s no knowing where this Dream might end.
Review: Julius Caesar
If you’re a habitual groundling, go before this production vanishes back on tour
Review: The Dance of Death
Highlights the truth of its bleak laughter. Humane Strindberg. Now there’s a thing.
Review: King Lear
Rarely has a Cordelia and Fool scaled such equal terms with such a Lear, rendering a kind of infinity.
Review: The False Servant
It’s not just gender-swerving but role-swerving that threatens sexual and social order. Surprises light up even the last fade.
Review: Cancelling Socrates
Howard Brenton touching eighty is at the height of his powers. Tom Littler has assembled a pitch-perfect cast, reuniting two from his outstanding All’s Well. This too.
Review: Henry VIII
A wonderful score and musicians, above all Bea Segura’s titanic act of shrivelling, make this a must-see.
Review: The Last
Chittenden’s done a great service not only to Mary Shelley’s novel, but to the way we imagine. And Amy Kidd’s exemplary.
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.
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