Based on the Academy Award-winning motion picture screenplay by Marc Norman and Tom Stoppard and adapted for the stage by Lee Hall, it was always going to be hard to live up to the 1998 seven-times Oscar winning film starring long-locked Gwyenth Paltrow, a bearded Joseph Fiennes and a romping Simon Callow. Fans of the film anticipating bawdy Elizabethan humour, mistaken identity and a fair amount of romance will get more than their pound of flesh (and a glimpse of some)…
Currently making it’s world première at the Noel Coward Theatre, in this 450th year anniversary of Shakespeare’s birth, this Shakespeare in Love is an extravagant production with a heavy-weight team including Disney Theatrical Productions and Sonia Friedman Productions, along with director Declan Donnellan who set up Cheek by Jowl, an international touring company who specialise in re-imaginings of Shakespeare, with his life-partner Nick Ormerod.
Ormerod has excelled in designing an impressive wooden Tudor structure which provides an atmospheric backdrop for the fast-moving action, enhanced with lashings of live song, dance and candlelight. From a Tudor mansion, to The Rose Theatre or Juliet’s balcony in Verona, the beautiful 3-tier gallery set was a feast for the eyes and allowed for seamless changes of scene, all exquisitely choreographed by Jane Gibson.
Set in London in 1593, Will Shakespeare, played by the svelte Tom Bateman, is suffering from a severe case of writer’s block whilst being chased by debtors. His early fame is cleverly illustrated by a crowd gathering to hang on his every word, as he looks to comrade and fellow playwright Christopher ‘Kit’ Marlowe (David Oakes) for ideas.
The rest of the plot centres around the lady who snaps Will out of his creative stupor and inspires his most famous work, Romeo and Juliet (which starts out as Romeo and Ethel, the Pirate’s Daughter). Well-to-do blonde Viola De Lesseps has an obsession for the theatre and a fancy for one dashing playwright. Played by Lucy Briggs-Owen, she is determined to audition for Will’s play, but has to dress as a boy in order to overcome the Elizabethan laws preventing women from acting, then seen (and rightly so) as a debauched occupation.
“I will have poetry in my life. And adventure. And love. Love above all,” declares Will. I don’t recall Joseph Fiennes portraying The Bard as nearly so much of a blithering idiot and the chemistry between Bateman and Briggs-Owen often feels forced due to the over-enthusiastic Viola and a ridiculous amount of wig-flicking. She doesn’t cease to ‘act’ with or without the gentleman’s breeches on and all the hamming it up feels more in line with an episode of Blackadder than a full blown love story.
The cast of 28 (not to mention the dog) is large but necessary, with several stand-out performances, although for my part they don’t include either of the leads; David Oakes puts in a stormingly good turn as Marlowe (and his ghost), whilst Anna Carteret is a suitably regal Queen Elizabeth. Colin Ryan makes a deranged-looking young John Webster, with an early taste for blood and guts and Ferdy Roberts as Fennyman ‘the money’, on which the cast and production of Romeo and Juliet rely, is brilliantly funny on worming his way to the role of the apothecary.
Considering the play isn’t meant to be remotely academic or intellectual I do wonder why we needed to see the entire death scene of Romeo and Juliet in act two. It made it feel overly long and more editing and clearer direction is needed for a truly light-hearted feast of Shakespeare and his times. Perhaps Shakespeare in Love will go down better with teenagers and tourists, and there must have been plenty in the audience judging from the whoops and cheers at the end.
Shakespeare in Love at the Noel Coward Theatre, St Martin’s Lane, London, booking until 25th October 2014. For more information and tickets visit the website.
