Gareth's Culture and Travel Blog

I didn’t join in the debate about the early departure of Emma Rice from the Globe. It seemed to me the issues should have been thoroughly discussed and resolved (or not) before her appointment. I’m not a purist when it comes to Shakespeare productions and have enjoyed, even raved about, recent radical interpretations like Ivo van Hove’s Kings of War, the Almeida’s Hamlet and the NT’s Twelfth Night. I’ve liked Daniel Kramer’s work before, notably his excellent revival of Angels in America for Headlong.

First and foremost, a production has to serve the play, and that’s why this falls at the first hurdle. It doesn’t, hence the first half of this blog’s title. The other half of the title is because for the first time in maybe 100 visits since the very first production, it didn’t feel like Shakespeare’s Globe. Even though it was programmed before the departure was announced, it felt like they were putting two fingers up to an institution many of us have grown to love over the last twenty years, where there have been many other radical productions that have served their plays.

It’s one of the tackiest stagings I’ve ever seen. From the inexplicable missiles hanging above the stage to the white face make-up & black outfits and incongruous contemporary songs (YMCA during the Capulet’s masque, now fancy dress, party) to the Hindu Friar, it leaps from one gimmick to the next without pausing for breath. There is no sense of feuding families or love at first sight; indeed there isn’t an ounce of romance – in one of the greatest love stories ever told!

Daniel Kramer is the new Artistic Director of the beleaguered ENO. They once billed a Berlioz opera as ‘Terry Gilliam’s The Damnation of Faust’. The director is never king.