Shakespeare

Interview: Alan Cumming on staging a one-man Macbeth

Aberfeldy’s most famous son on the toil and trouble of Shakespeare

25 May 2012

How much doom and gloom can one man take? For most actors, it would be enough of a mental burden to take on the role of Macbeth, the warrior king whose ambition leads to self-destruction. But for Alan Cumming, that’s only the start of it. In a new…

Macbeth

6 Sep 2007

There’s nothing particularly new about updating Shakespeare’s medieval Scottish tragedy to a modern criminal underworld setting - see the 1956 American mob movie Joe Macbeth - but Australian filmmaker Geoffrey Wright nevertheless makes a decent stab at…

Gordon Barr on Bard in the Botanics 2012

The Tempest, Romeo and Juliet and As You Like It to be staged in Glasgow's Botanic Gardens

15 May 2012

This season, for us as we move into our second decade, is all about discovery, exploration and new horizons so we were looking for plays that tied in to those themes. The link to The Tempest is fairly clear but As You Like It covers some similar ground…

Top 5: Artists lending their talents to children's TV voice-overs

Featuring Derek Jacobi, Stephen Fry, Arthur Lowe and more

28 Mar 2011

Ah, the life of the serious actor. All that serious acting they have to do; all the line learning, the getting into character, the understanding and channelling of the character's emotional vulnerabilities and personality traits. Its enough to drive a…

Othello

Citizens Theatre, Glasgow, until Sat 21 Nov

10 Nov 2009

Guy Hollands’ production of the Bard’s tragedy of racial hatred, jealousy and betrayal is a stripped-back version, starkly lit, with minimal staging, that returns the focus squarely to Shakespeare’s language. Thus, the most successful moments come about…

Bard in the Botanics

11 Jun 2009

There are probably fewer people in Scotland more excited about the Met Office’s predicted heatwave this summer than Gordon Barr, artistic director of Bard in the Botanics, Glasgow’s annual outdoor Shakespeare festival. ‘I’m really keeping my fingers…

Romeo and Juliet

16 Aug 2007

Having finally got over Baz Luhrmann’s version, it feels like we can move on to a new approach to this popular, if flawed, old Shakespearean standby. If Peter Meineck’s version for Aquila doesn’t quite make for a new ‘standard’, it certainly…

Irene MacDougall to play female Prospero in Dundee Rep's The Tempest

Caliban and Ariel also adapted as female roles in new production

15 May 2012

Irene MacDougall has been a member of the Dundee Rep ensemble since its inception, but 2012 will mark her first turn in The Tempest. Like Helen Mirren in Julie Taymor’s recent film of Shakespeare’s classic, MacDougall will play Prospero as a female. The…

Theatre critic Mark Fisher on the Shakespeare productions planned for 2012

Alan Cumming, David Hayman and more to stage the Bard next year

13 Dec 2011

In 1964, the Polish critic Jan Kott published Shakespeare, our Contemporary. The book caused a stir for framing a long-dead playwright through the lens of 20th century totalitarianism. Director Peter Brook was delighted to find a commentator who could…

I, Malvolio

Revisiting Shakespeare’s maligned steward

22 Aug 2011

Appearing in the latter half of a Festival that has made its theatre audience work harder than in previous years, Tim Crouch keeps us on the edge of our seats with a show that probes cultural tastes through the figure of Shakespeare’s much maligned…

Bard in the Botanics - 10 years of Glasgow’s outdoor Shakespeare festival

Artistic director Gordon Barr on 2011 anniversary programme

27 May 2011

Artistic director Gordon Barr reminisces about ten years of Glasgow’s outdoor Shakespeare festival and looks ahead to the anniversary programme with Steve Cramer It seems a little odd that we should think of Shakespeare played outdoors as a peculiar…

Romeo and Juliet

22 Sep 2010

As the prologue foretelling the deaths of the most iconic of lovers is spoken, we see them, statuesque in an embrace, their now reconciled families laying wreaths at their feet. With this opening, and the almost universal knowledge of how this story…

King Lear

Botanic Gardens, Glasgow, until Sat 10 Jul

2 Jul 2010

As is so often the case with outdoor performances, an audience’s ultimate enjoyment of this first show in Bard in the Botanics’ 2010 season might be more a matter of projection than performance. While some of the parts require – and are afforded – a…

Macbeth at Traquair

28 May 2010

It’s summertime, which may or may not mean the arrival of blue skies and sunshine, but most certainly spells the onset of the outdoor Shakespeare season. Leading the pack is the annual celebration of the Bard at beautiful Traquair House in Innerleithen…

Greenwich Theatre and Rapture co-production of Hamlet tours Scotland

23 Feb 2010

Scotland’s Rapture theatre company has teamed up with the Greenwich Theatre in London to create a modern, accessible take on Shakespeare’s most famous play. Rapture’s updated Hamlet is set in the contemporary Glasgow underworld, where Hamlet is caught…

Much Ado About Nothing - 25 & 26 April, St Mary’s Quad, St Andrews

27 Apr 2009

Directors Sam Fowles and Alice Jones promised an ‘original’ Much Ado. ‘While we would never dare to look outside such a wonderful script for inspiration,’ they explained, ‘we basically took this as something of a carte blanche to experiment.’ The…

The Winter's Tale

4 Oct 2007

Royal Lyceum, Edinburgh, until Sat 20 Oct CLASSIC So much of Shakespeare’s work examines the disparity between the rational, ordered world, governed by laws and etiquettes long since agreed and more pre-rational, primal urges and experiences, but…

New production Lady M re-examines the Macbeth story

Mary McClusky discusses The Scottish Play's continuing relevance to modern audiences

16 Apr 2012

As artistic director of Scottish Youth Theatre and a frequent contributor to Oran Mor’s Classic Cuts season, Mary McCluskey is no stranger to slimming down a Shakespeare play to its essential components. And in the year of the World Shakespeare…

David Hayman to play King Lear at Citizens Theatre

Dominic Hill directs Scottish production of Shakespeare

21 Mar 2012

It’s been 33 years since David Hayman last performed at the Citizens Theatre. ‘Backstage is very different so I now need a chaperone to get me from A to B.’ he laughs. Widely recognised for his role as DCS Walker in ITV’s Trial and Retribution, Hayman…

Coriolanus

Ralph Fiennes proves as adept behind the camera as in front of it in this Shakespeare adaptation

5 Jan 2012

(15) 123min Ralph Fiennes’ directorial debut is a powerful reimagining of the Shakespearean tragedy and is a resonant story about leadership, politics and power. Acting as well as directing, Fiennes stars as the central character, the eponymous…

Soulja Boy inspired by Shakespeare

Music Gossip

3 Oct 2011

Soulja Boy is inspired by Shakespeare. The 'Crank That' rapper claims the English playwright - who died in 1616 and is widely acknowledged as the greatest in Western history - has had a profound effect on his career, in particular a quote from his…

The Tempest

Anarchic comedy showcases Korean theatrical traditions and retains spirit of the original

14 Aug 2011

Shakespeare’s swansong enjoys a unique status in the playwright’s canon. Part magical realist fantasy, part forerunner to the absurdist tragicomedy, part wry comment on the nature of playwriting itself, The Tempest floats outside of the classifications…

King Lear

Engaging spectacle gives Shakespeare a Jingju interpretation at 2011 EIF

14 Aug 2011

Two artforms, alike in their lengthy traditions and explorations of familial and martial subjects but divergent in their aesthetic, are brought together by their areas of commonality. Wu Hsing-kuo (Contemporary Legend Theatre) adapts aspects of…

The Curse of Macbeth

Great staging, shame about the acting

8 Aug 2011

From the knife-wielding thugs that welcome you into the venue, it’s clear that this production of Macbeth is going to be bold, brash and in your face. And in those terms the show doesn’t disappoint. Its striking design – all bloodstained mirrors and dry…

The Okavango Macbeth: Alexander McCall Smith’s 'Shakespeare and baboons' opera

The author/librettist teams up with Tom Cunningham and Robert McFall

24 Mar 2011

Alexander McCall Smith’s inspiration to write an opera based on Shakespeare’s Macbeth isn’t the first. Verdi was certainly there before him, but what makes McCall Smith’s The Okavango Macbeth decidedly different is that the characters are all baboons.