The Tempest
The Royal Shakespeare Theatre
Stratford-upon-Avon
★★★☆☆

THE RSC must have had great expectations in the return of Kenneth Branagh to the stage  where he made his name 30 years ago, now in a production from one of the modern stage’s leading directors, Richard Eyre, and with, what’s more, a much-lauded early visit of the company’s royal patron. The show is, understandably, already a sellout.

Eyre once saw Shakespeare’s elusive final play as “a baroque tale,” but now recognises it as “a meditation on art and power and freedom.” Here he has attempted, courageously, to weld these two interpretations together. As many previous productions have demonstrated, however it is theatrically treated, the text poses problems for any production team.

There is what can seem as an interminable narration when Prospero tells Miranda, his daughter, and the audience, how they came to find themselves castaway some 12 years before on a barren island which is nevertheless “full of noises, sounds and sweet airs that give delight and hurt not.” Then there are the rest of the island’s occupants: Ariel, a magic spirit who spends most of the play “invisible” to all but ourselves, and a “savage and deformed slave” who later plots to kill his all-powerful master.

Eyre’s production starts brilliantly when Branagh’s magician-cum-maestro takes up his baton to conduct, histrionically, the elements in a filmed tempest projection, the backdrop to the shipwreck engineered by Prospero to leave his erstwhile enemies in his power.

These guilty men are given the full treatment by Amara Okereke (Ariel) who spends the whole play gambolling over their heads from a trapeze, and so much so that when she is finally given her freedom by Prospero, she has difficulty finding her land feet.

How a director decides on how the Caliban/Prospero relationship should be presented is a key factor in the play. Ashley Zhangazha is more a noble than a misshapen savage and, despite his misbehaviour, we feel he has been given a hard time and finally deserves, in this case, to be given his island back.

The Bard’s broad comic scenes, apart from his rude mechanicals in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, are never funny and Eyre has coped by pantomiming the drunken slapstick between Keir Charles’ Trinculo and Guy Henry’s Stephano.  

And this, Shakespeare’s most musical play, is well served by composers Akintayo Akinbode and Stephen Warbeck.

However, The Tempest is essentially Prospero’s play and here Branagh disappoints. It is as if he isn’t confident in who the character should be. He received the expected press night standing ovation but, apart from moments when the play’s poetry demanded more of him, he appeared to be having too much fun.

In all, the production promised more than it delivered.

Runs until June 20. Box office: 01789 331-111, rsc.org.uk.