Shakespeare in Love, Noel Coward Theatre, London. April 2015.
Apologies for the radio silence - April has been an important study month with two essays to research and write. I've broken the back of them now and so time to catch up on other areas!
Way back at the start of the month a friend and I went to London on a whim to see Shakespeare in Love. For me it was a recommended play/film for my Shakespeare's Legacy course and my friend is also studying Shakespeare currently.
This was a delightful way to spend the afternoon, the play followed the film throughout and now that I have spent a few years studying the Bard I found it a lot funnier than I recall. In fact at a couple of points my friend and I found ourselves laughing at lines that others in the audience didn't...
The set for this play was magnificent and very clever as it moved back and forth to show the different locations in which the action takes place. Some of my favourite parts were very simple, for instance when Shakespeare is in the row boat cast members dip hands in and out of buckets of water to create the sound effects. The use of the actors to move the scenery was very well done, and I liked the way that most of them appeared on stage throughout. It did remind me in someways of Elizabethan/Jacobean theatre as staged in the two theatres at the Globe but was still modern. It mixed the styles very well.
Sadly this play closed in the middle of April but I hear rumours that it will be going on tour and if it does then I do recommend trying to see it. It is a fun romp that leaves you with a smile and sometimes that is just what you want from a play. This is the first film-to-play show that I've seen and I think that it worked very well, I do wonder if a lot of this is due to the fact that Tom Stoppard (renowned playwright) wrote the script to the film.
There is also an adorable dog in the play who steals the show entirely in the couple of scenes he appears in - although I'm not sure he deserved the biggest cheer at the end!
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