GORDON PARSONS appreciates fine performances and a feel for ambiguity, but misses the music of the dialogue
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Taking the measure of the times
GORDON PARSONS sees a Shakespeare production on the abuse of power which mirrors present concerns
On the horns of a dilemma: Isabella (Lucy Phelps)
[Helen Maybanks]
DOUGLAS FIELD relishes the hard-boiled language, satire and humour of the third and last of the Harlem trilogy
STEPHANIE BROWN draws attention to the hidden labour of the female embroiderers, and how a 19th century replica made no such error
MIK SABIERS revels in a band that ploughs an idiosyncratic furrow of expletive laden, guitar-driven alt rock
ANDY HEDGECOCK, MARIA DUARTE and ANGUS REID review Synthetic Sincerity, Our Hero, Balthazar, Heartstopper Forever, and A Year In London
The bard invites readers to a gig, raps for Clacton, and lays out the Burnham-Hurzeler conundrum
RON JACOBS recommends an important book that enhances the oppositional theories put forth by Fanon and, in doing so, remakes psychology itself
Measure for Measure
The Royal Shakespeare Theatre
Stratford-Upon-Avon
THE deceptively simple plot of one of the Bard’s most problematic plays draws on conventional motifs, in which an unnamed ruler hands over his power to a deputy with the task of cleaning up his morally dissipated state, while a woman is challenged to give way to the new ruler’s lust in order to save her brother’s life.
It’s nominally a comedy, so of course all ends happily. But Greg Doran’s sharply etched production raises a question about the psychology of power which, understandably, comes into its own in modern times.
In it, Antony Byrne’s troubled Duke peremptorily breaks up his Straussian-waltzing court to launch his sociological experiment by handing the job of cleaning up the stews of 19th-century Vienna to Scottish Presbyterian Angelo (Sandy Grierson), a Putin lookalike.
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