In the early hours of Saturday morning I will be heading down to Cornwall to perform in Henry V at the Minack Theatre.  I’m really looking forward to it and weather permitting it will be fantastic.  I’ll blog about it when I get back, but in the meantime click on the image to see backstage photos from the shows at Derby Grammar School.

Derby Shakespeare Theatre Company frequently hire costumes from the Royal Shakespeare Company.  More often than not there are labels inside and you can find out the production, actor and role the costume was used for previously.  I was particularly excited to find out that my Montjoy costume belonged to Jonathan Slinger’s Richard II in the RSC’s recent histories cycle.  If you click the link it’s the one he’s wearing in the photo, minus the jerkin.

If that wasn’t impressive enough our Fluellen Mat’s suit of armour belonged to Brian Blessed in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves.

Tickets for Henry V are available from the Minack Theatre website.

SHAKESPEARE in the open air and a British summer - the recipe for a fine and relaxing night out. The British weather does its best to compound that idea, ensuring that in the lead-up to this latest production by the Derby Shakespeare Theatre company of Henry V, everyone was watching the skies, hoping that the battlefields of France wouldn’t become a sodden quagmire.

As it happened, we happy few, armed with umbrellas and warming refreshments, witnessed yet another excellent telling of the Bard’s work.

Chris Scott has to carry the full weight of this production on his shoulders as the King intending to fight for the lands of France that were won by Edward II. He has to be astute, grand, personable and a man whom we believe people would fight for.

Scott pulls this off with ease, cutting a swathe through the performance area at Derby Grammer School. So immersed is he in the character he also sports a rather serious haircut to add to the illusion.

Under long-term Derby Shakespeare member Ian Arnott’s direction, the introduction of the warring sides is handled with simple isolation. Scott aside, Helena Franklin as Princess Katherine enchants with her learning of English, and is coyly believable in the protracted finale.

The production is punctuated with fine performances, Matthew Shepherd, Joe O’Brien, Michael Gaunt, Eddy Chambers and Jack Bamford are just some of the people who provide them and when this production heads to the Minack theatre in Cornwall at the end of the month it will be a fine advertisement for the talent we have in Derby.

Cry God for Harry! England and St George and look forward to another hundred years of Shakespeare in the City, with the sun shining and not an umbrella in sight!

(Source: Derby Evening Telegraph)

I took some photos of Henry V rehearsals yesterday afternoon; click the image to check them out.  As you can see, rehearsals have moved to the actual performance space at the grammar school and I’m beginning to get used to the size difference between Shakespeare House and the comparative larger school field.  Watching offstage I get a sense that the show is really starting to galvanise.

Onstage our entrances and exits are quite tricky because, being an outdoor production, the wings can be observed from the audience.  I can be seen before I make my entrance, so it’s a balancing act because I need to appear in character should the audience look over and yet not be too busy that I pose a distraction to the audience or indeed miss my cues.  Another issue is hearing cue lines, yesterday was particularly windy and at times it was a struggle for me to hear cue lines to make my entrances.  Barring these difficulties it can be particularly exhilarating to perform an elaborate entrance and time it in such a way that my lines are delivered perfectly on cue.  Brilliant!

For more information about Henry V and booking tickets visit the Derby Shakespeare Theatre Company website.

Despite being in several of Shakespeare’s plays Henry V is the first I have done in traditional costume and it was the arrival of the costumes from Stratford that really made the rehearsal for me.  AMAZING!  I’ve been in a few productions, all with terrific outfits, but these are in a different league.  Hanging banner-like from the greenroom walls were polythene bags containing the type of military wear that you would have expected to see running around the fields of Agincourt 600 years ago.  The room was a melee of brigandines and tabards displaying the Lancastrian coat of arms, barbute helmets, plate armor, gauntlets, hauberks of chainmail and chausses for the legs.  Apparently there is more coming from London.  It’s all very exciting.

For more information about Henry V and booking tickets visit the Derby Shakespeare Theatre Company website.

Whilst the RSC’s Hamlet doesn’t offer anything particular new, what it does offer is an emphasis on the humanity of the play. Tennant is a perfect Hamlet, but at 37 is perhaps more OU than a Wittenberg undergraduate. However, as demonstrated regularly in Doctor Who, he has a youthful spirit and is therefore capable of capturing the duality of Hamlet; both his playful madness and introspective philosophising. Crouched at the back of the stage facing away from the audience, Hamlet’s first monologue is delivered beautifully amidst squeaking outbursts of grief. His relationship with Horatio is very convincing and Peter de Jersey’s terrific reactions to Hamlet’s subtle mockery of the other characters serves to solidify the friendship between them.

Oliver Ford Davis delivers a show stealing performance, deftly handling the humour of Polonius by inexorably churning out the character’s idiosyncratic observations. He often, very humorously, grinds to a halt during his more introspective moments and other characters find this necessitates a quick reboot. His scene with Ophelia and Laertes was particularly memorable. Meanwhile, Patrick Stewart understates Claudius and as a result I didn’t feel the sense of a kingly authority over the proceedings. However, rather more intriguingly, I perceived a sense of menace bubbling underneath, which culminated in a final sinister shrug of the shoulders before necking the contents of the poisoned chalice. How Stewart retains such subtly in his performance whilst projecting enough of it to communicate with a whole auditorium is a skill that’s beyond me. Finally, the ensemble, seen most recently in Doran’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, is yet again terrific, delivering some unforgettable supporting performances including a fantastically suggestive dumb show.

This Hamlet is by no means a groundbreaking production, but clearly that wasn’t the intention. What Doran has very successfully achieved is a great Hamlet with a focus on the very human responses each character has to one another and the events that shape the play.

Hamlet can be seen at The Courtyard Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon until the 15th November 2008 before transferring (from the 3rd December until the 10th January) to the Novello Theatre, London. Tickets for the Stratford shows are completely sold out so either try for returns or expect to pay in excess of £250 for a pair on eBay. Tickets for the London run go on sale on the 12th September. For more information about Hamlet and other productions visit the Royal Shakespeare Company or Novello Theatre websites.

UPDATE: On the BBC’s website there is an overview of the critical response to the ‘Doctor Who Hamlet’ accompanied by their own review of Hamlet and you can see a selection of photos from David Tennant’s performance as Hamlet on the Guardian’s website.

The atmosphere was magical as I entered the auditorium amongst Francis O’Connor’s shimmering bulby firmament and gigantic dangling moon. However, I did not have to rely on the terrific set to feel a sense of magic. Although I did have to do a double take when the fairies brought on the Indian boy - it looked like they’d brought an actual toddler on stage!

Magic infects the guts of this gorgeous production of Shakespeare’s most performed comedy. Gregory Doran focuses upon the rich and varied language of the play as his starting point and the resulting effect is that magic infuses through every aspect of the show. The quintet of lovers were headed up by Kathryn Drysdale with only a touch of the Two Pints of Lager about her (it was only after checking the programme that I was certain she was who I thought she was) and Tom Davey’s hilarious Lysander who had me laughing embarrassingly loudly, I won’t spoil the gags though.

The actors playing the lovers’ mastery of the language released a subtle chime of expression which permeated through the senses; easily avoiding the monotony of clunking rhyme which can often befoul speakers of this type of verse. The fairies’ language slipped between charms and discourse as though the actors were changing gears on a smooth road, whilst further embellishment, almost surplus to requirement, was provided by Paul Englishby’s deliciously opulent score. The mechanicals were incredibly funny, Joe Dixon’s Bottom delivered a particularly superb performance, and their ‘play within a play’ re-energised an audience that were naturally beginning to flag once the lover’s ménage à quatre was resolved. During the final scene, as was common throughout the show, the language was manipulated for laughs, yet space was left for the gags that are found naturally in the text. A production that honoured yet refreshed the play with deeply magical results.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream can be seen at The Courtyard Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon until the 13th November 2008. For more information about this and other productions visit the Royal Shakespeare Company website.