The Tempest
Sam Wanamaker Theatre, London
⭑⭑⭑⭑☆

THE most striking aspect of this quirky, highly entertaining take on Shakespeare’s tragicomedy is its regular breaking of the fourth wall.

With players filtering in and out of the candle-lit auditorium in ways that are often surprising, a further layer of unreality is added to the brooding, magical realms of Prospero’s island of exile.

Although several instances of wall-breaking are hard to justify in terms of the play’s internal structure – even if they do get some laughs – the general effect is to force the audience into even deeper consideration of what’s illusion and what’s not.

Director Tim Crouch, who plays Prospero, also makes sure the key actors remain on stage (or just off it) even when they’re not taking part in the action, reminding us that it’s not all about Prospero, and that Caliban and Miranda, in particular, have skin in the game too.

That point is given further emphasis by a clever redistribution of some of Prospero’s lines to other characters, with the bonus effect that the lead man becomes all the more powerfully controlling in his simmering, patriarchal silence.

Set in what feels like a South Sea island, and against the backdrop of Prospero’s front room which designer Rachana Jadhav has given the flavour of an anthropological museum, it all amounts to a memorable and enjoyable deconstruction of the play, sending it in new directions without disrupting the flow.

Aside from Crouch’s especially prickly interpretation of Prospero, there’s an interesting re-casting by Faizal Abdullah of Caliban, who becomes an almost loveable figure, shorn of any ugly malice, and by Sophie Steer of a more than usually feisty Miranda, who seems to have a hold on her father despite his bullying behaviour.

The sprite Ariel, played by Naomi Wirthner as a serenely patient, motherly figure, knitting quietly in the corner between her spell-making, completes a leading quartet melded into an unlikely family unit by ritualised storytelling and myth-making.

With hauntingly ethereal singing from Emma Bonnici and Victoria Couper to stitch everything together, this is a delightfully eccentric and cleverly constructed production that makes the most of the theatrical devices at its disposal.

Runs until April 12. Box Office: 020 7401 9919, shakespearesglobe.com