Nothing, says ANDY HEDGECOCK, can rescue this undistinguished amalgam of ponderous melodrama and shallow philosophical speculation
The Swan Theatre
Stratford-upon-Avon
CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE’S play Doctor Faustus presents any modern director with a key problem. How can a contemporary audience, no longer in thrall to religious mythology, take seriously Faustus’s pact with the devil and his minister Mephistophilis, trading his immortal soul for 24 years of gratification of his every desire?
Family issues and dragon-fuelled history amount to a vacuous spectacle that ill-fits the theatre, muses SIMON PARSONS
GORDON PARSONS appreciates fine performances and a feel for ambiguity, but misses the music of the dialogue
GORDON PARSONS salutes the apt return of Brecht’s vaudevillian cartoon drama that retains the vitality of the boxing or the circus ring
GORDON PARSONS is blown away by a superb production of Rostand’s comedy of verbal panache and swordmanship



