Boudica, Shakespeare's Globe review - ancient history made compellingly contemporary

★★★★ BOUDICA, SHAKESPEARE'S GLOBE A British queen brought to life: Tristan Bernays’s new play fits its venue perfectly

A British queen brought to life: Tristan Bernays’s new play fits its venue perfectly

History comes to the stage of the Globe only rarely – at least if you compare the frequency of productions there from that segment of the Shakespearean canon against the tragedies and comedies – which is certainly one reason to welcome Boudica.

King Lear, Shakespeare's Globe - Nancy Meckler's Globe debut is unusually subdued

★★ KING LEAR, SHAKESPEARE'S GLOBE Kevin R McNally stars in a tragedy so quiet it proves almost inaudible at times

Kevin R McNally stars in a tragedy so quiet it proves almost inaudible at times

Every play is a Brexit play. This much we have learnt in the year since the referendum. But in Nancy Meckler’s hands the Globe’s new King Lear becomes the Brexit play – an unpicking of intergenerational responsibility and difference, of philosophies of power and governance, tackling above all that sticky question of what the old really owe the young.

Much Ado About Nothing, Shakespeare's Globe review - swaggering Shakespeare with a comic Spanish accent

★★★★ MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING, SHAKESPEARE'S GLOBE Swaggering Shakespeare with a comic Spanish accent

It's fiesta time in Matthew Dunster's colourful new show

When I say that Matthew Dunster’s Much Ado is revolutionary I’m not talking about the many textual updatings and rewritings, not the lashings of PJ Harvey, nor even the gunfire – weaponised punchlines that cut through the colour and noise of the production.

Tristan & Yseult, Shakespeare's Globe review - terrific visual and musical élan

Emma Rice bows out in riotous style - Shakespeare would have cheered her

This show feels like an end-of-the-exams party, and in a way that’s exactly what it is. If the fruits of Emma Rice’s short tenure as Artistic Director at the Globe were a series of tests that she is deemed to have failed, then Tristan & Yseult, a revival of an early hit devised for the company Kneehigh, is her parting two-fingered salute.

Twelfth Night, Shakespeare's Globe review - Emma Rice goes out with a bang

★★★ TWELFTH NIGHT, SHAKESPEARE'S GLOBE Emma Rice goes out with a bang

Shakespeare's cross-dressing comedy gets the high-seas treatment, but loses the poetry

The Globe’s artistic director Emma Rice has made no secret of her desire to go out with a bang, in this, the final season of her brutally truncated tenure at the company. With this Twelfth Night she stages a departure with bells (and whistles, and disco-balls, electric guitars, congas, Sister Sledge, and yes, a whole rig of lighting) on – a neon-bright, two-fingered salute to the board that forced her out.

Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare's Globe review - 'too much brouhaha'

★★ ROMEO AND JULIET, SHAKESPEARE'S GLOBE Whizzbangs and brouhaha. Disappointing

There's vigour and violence, comedy too, but Daniel Kramer's production disappoints

“Everything in extremity”. That announcement that the Capulet party is about to begin could just as well serve to describe Daniel Kramer’s Romeo and Juliet as a whole. Opening the Globe's new season, it will provoke reactions as conflicting as the play’s warring families.

The White Devil, Sam Wanamaker Playhouse

THE WHITE DEVIL SAM WANAMAKER PLAYHOUSE This pitch black production of Webster's revenge tragedy is pitch perfect

This pitch black production of Webster's revenge tragedy is pitch perfect

It's no accident that when the Globe's Sam Wanamaker Playhouse opened in 2014 it was with The Duchess of Malfi. This wooden womb, with its thick darkness and close-pressed audience is made for the stifling, claustrophobic horror of revenge tragedy.

The Little Matchgirl, Sam Wanamaker Playhouse

THE LITTLE MATCHGIRL, SAM WANAMAKER PLAYHOUSE Hans Christian Andersen made contemporary, infused with Emma Rice's trademark brio

Hans Christian Andersen made contemporary, infused with Emma Rice's trademark brio

For anyone disposed to treat the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse as hallowed ground – and such issues have gained much currency at the Globe recently following the announced early departure of artistic director Emma Rice – The Little Matchgirl may seem like a wanton deconstruction of its space, which is cheeked into a knowing update that comes close to Edwardian music hall, and with aperçus stingingly relevant to the venue’s recent backstory (“Candles are much more atmospheric than electricity” is one such textual quip).