JAMES WALSH is moved by a provocative and original take on the relationship between ecology and architecture, and a plea to work with, not against, the materials and minerals of our world
Cymbeline
The Royal Shakespeare Theatre,
Stratford-upon-Avon
2/5
SHAKESPEARE doesn’t make life easy for director or cast with this late play.
Incorporated in it is a kaleidoscope of styles and some of his most complex language and he almost challenges any company to find coherence in a play that George Bernard Shaw described as “stagey trash of the lowest melodramatic order.”
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



