If it's possible to have rather too much of a frolicsome thing, consider by way of example The Knight of the Burning Pestle, a giddily self-conscious 1607 romp from Francis Beaumont that would be more fun if it were at least a full scene or two shorter.
A candlelit theatre is one thing. A theatre when those candles are so close you could lean in and blow them out, where a good line sets them flickering in gusts of audience laughter is quite another. We’ve been spoilt by the Globe for almost 20 years now, and the novelty of its open-air theatre still feels fresh. With the new, Jacobean-inspired Sam Wanamaker Playhouse (capacity just 340), they have done it again.
Having boundaries actually sets us free. So Neil Armstrong's wife argues. She is dogmatically keen to stop her husband rocketing off to the moon in the first scene of The Lightning Child – a groundbreaking show in so far as it's the first musical to premiere at Shakespeare's reconstructed wooden "O", opening last night. Armstrong (Harry Hepple in a space suit) does not agree with his spouse's imposed limits, however. A lunar voyage is, he says, his chance to become sublime.
Could you choose between love and knowledge? Between a life of acceptance and affection, and one of self-improvement and learning? These are the questions that Jessica Swale's new play Blue Stockings poses again and again.
If there’s a more thinly written, loosely structured and hammily acted play than Samuel Adamson’s panorama of Purcell’s London, then I have yet to endure it. Baffling, because this is the writer who brought us Southwark Fair, a lively depiction of the local scene which never so much as hinted as the village-institute clichés and banalities piled high here in a production by Dominic Dromgoole which does little to finesse the sorry situation.
This is the directorial debut of Eve Best, better known as a talented classical and comedic actress, who was last at Shakespeare's Globe appearing as Beatrice in a superb Much Ado About Nothing opposite Charles Edwards's Benedick.
Midsummer’s Eve may still be a month away and the evenings more bracing than balmy, but despite a serious chill still in the air the Globe Theatre yesterday proved yet again that it exists in its own microclimate. It’s a theatre and a company made for comedy. Such is the laughter, the sense of occasion, the energy of the crowd, that you find yourself swept up in the joy of it all – enjoying a summer holiday, if only for the evening.
A thunder sheet booms, a didgeridoo hums distantly, a model ship rears and pitches its way forward through the waves of groundlings and suddenly we find ourselves washed up on the shores of the Globe for another season. All eyes may be on the newly launched Sam Wanamaker Playhouse, but just when we were all at risk of getting too distracted by its novelty, Jeremy Herrin and his new production of The Tempest are here to remind us what the original Globe Theatre does best.
“Would you enforce me to a world of cares?” croons Rylance’s Richard III, lingering tremulously over his question, the picture of world-sick piety and reluctance. As the groundlings cheer an ecstatic affirmative, Shakespeare’s most compelling villain once again claims the dramatic victory. History may have him as the vanquished, but in Tim Carroll’s new Globe production, even death cannot strip the crown of the vanquisher from Mark Rylance’s brow.
The Taming of the Shrew celebrates its own rumbustious, raucous (mis)behaviour, so why shouldn't Shakespeare's comedy be granted a production that follows suit? From an opening gambit involving bodily fluids sprayed in the direction of the groundlings to a food fight later that would put the bad boys of Posh to shame, Toby Frow's directorial debut at Shakespeare's Globe turns up the volume to consistently giddy effect.