Botanic Gardens, Glasgow 3 stars It takes a wrestling match to make Rosalind’s heart go all aflutter over Orlando in what’s possibly Shakespeare’s most long-winded comedy. That it’s taking part in the grunt and grapple game that similarly gets Orlando’s endorphins going speaks volumes about the excitement going on in these would-be lovers young lives. Especially as the mat Orlando throws himself about in Gordon Barr’s promenade production for this year’s Bard in the Botanics season is ever so slightly soggy due to the light drizzle that briefly delayed this weekend’s opening performance. Barr goes for broke while it stays dry, moving from the opening scene in Duke Frederick’s court set beside one of the garden’s hothouses, to the Forest of Arden sheltered under a tree, to a flame-lit finale beside a sheltered pagoda. The trouble is, to get through this extended rom-com awash with rustic cross-dressing, one needs to do it with a gallop that the longeurs between locations hinder somewhat. There are still good things going on here, particularly from Nicole Cooper as a Rosalind who flits between mischievous tomboyishhness and a tongue-tied teenage girl with a serious crush. Kirk Bage makes for a stately, somewhat Wildean Jaques, and Beth Marshall doubles up nicely as Madame Le Beau and comely goatherd, Audrey. Best of all are all too brief cameos from Ashleigh Kasaboski as smitten shepherdess Phebe and Steven Grawrock as straw-hatted village idiot, William. As all four couples come home to roost following at least one romp in the bushes, As You Like It may take a while to get there, but, rarely for this year’s Bard in the Botanics, at least they made it home and dry. The Herald, July 16th 2012 ends
Edinburgh Playhouse Five stars A big National Coal Board sign looms large at the opening of Lee Hall and Elton John's decade-old musical stage version of Hall and director Stephen Daldry's hit turn of the century film. In a tale of one little boy's liberation as a dancer against the backdrop of the 1980s miners strike, however, the Durham Miners banner and the 'Save Our Community' sash held aloft matter more. It is this call to arms that forms the heart of Daldry's production, as Billy becomes a potty-mouthed beacon of hope in a situation where picket line, thin blue line and chorus line rub uneasily up against each other. Given such a context, there is bound to be some pretty grown-up stuff going on here, be it the institutionalised homophobia in Billy's village, the class war going on within it, or Billy's grieving for his dead mother that drives his every move. And, as so magnificently choreographed by Peter Darling, what moves they are. Watch...
Comments