At the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon

December 30, 2006

Gregory Doran is the Cecil B.DeMille of theatre, the great theatrical showman, the director with the golden touch, a thesp who knows how to turn the all too familiar into something new and spectacular. And in this wonderfully re-tuned show Doran has taken the bones of the story, and, with the music of Paul Englishby, the lyrics of Ranjit Bolt, turned the whole thing into a singing and dancing extravaganza that delights at every ridiculous twist and turn of Shakespeare’s plot. I loved it.

And that’s about it when it comes to Doran’s work - you either love it or hate it. But what is there to hate?

But the purists often do, as if the Doran touch somehow cheapens Shakespeare, makes fun of the Bard and his hallowed words. Rubbish! Doran brings Shakespeare to life - back to life even, as he must have been in those dangerous, glorious days of the Globe - in a way that Bill himself might have recognised and applauded. Gregory Doran has somehow plugged into the man, might even be the man. The second coming perhaps?

Two or three years ago Doran created something wonderfully moving with his puppet interpretation of Venus & Adonis that was, for a while, the best the RSC had come up with in quite a long time, even with real actors. He did it again with his hilarious production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, which took the lid off that, until then, dreadfully unfunny play, re-inventing it so that it not only made the critics of the Times, and The Guardian (Charles Spencer of the Daily Telegraph was already a hopeless case by then) laugh uncontrollably in the aisles, but also made this most peculiar of plays penetrable and understandable. Most recently - the winter of 2005/2006 I think - he took Geoffrey Chaucer by the scruff of his neck and his scrotum, and turned The Canterbury Tales into a brave and hugely funny (and I mean funny) show that lasted over six hours that seemed like six minutes. And in both Dream and Tales Doran used puppets again to mesmerising effect. There are no holds barred when Doran gets his hands on a play - if it works leave it in.

And that was obviously the order-of-the-day with Wives too. One can imagine Doran lining-up Dame Judi Dench, Simon Callow, Alistair McGowan, Haydn Gwynne, Jeffery Dench (Dame Judi’s brother), and the rest of ‘em, like a sergeant major before a battle and explaining that attack - in comedy as in warfare - is the best, the only, sort of defence. That once the enemy are on the run, or in this case, the audience are screaming with laughter (then applauding at the oh-so-very-wonderfully-over-the-top singing and dancing) don’t ever look back toward your own trenches but keep on going forward until the audience is conquered completely and utterly, and begging for mercy, or, as we did at the end, for more!

Doran doesn’t really leave you time to think (you can do that on the way home, or in the restaurant over a glass or two of wine and a good steak), but instead wants you to become an integral part of the production (as you might in a pantomime where you desperately want to shout out ‘behind you’) and expound as much energy and sweat in the watching and listening as the actors do in the performance; and Doran makes you do that. It’s the least you can do really.

But Merry Wives: The Musical is not a pantomime, but a well thought out piece of musical theatre that at the start deliberately uses the obvious build-up to a song as a way of warming-up the audience, who then take each succeeding song (and Ranjit Bolt’s songs are very good, which you’d expect from the nephew of playwright Robert Bolt) much more easily for what they are, namely a means of pushing forward the plot. Only when the audience have become used to that device (which is an old and well tested device anyway) does the energetic and wonderfully ironic (yes, ironic) choreography of Michael Ashcroft come into play. And does he play!

The whole show borrows from anyone and everyone, and in Ashcroft’s dance, and Englishby’s score, we have a mix that takes in everything from The Chocolate Soldier, via The Phantom of the Opera and Les Mis, to Seven Brides for Seven Brothers and The Rocky Horror Show. It’s just so wonderfully, breathlessly, eclectic; but done with a superb skill that only the RSC can do when it’s really motoring. If anyone remembers the RSC production of The Begger’s Opera of the early 1990s you’ll know what I mean.

Dame Judi Dench, as Mistress Quickly, is seriously funny - she also sings as if she’s just about keeping up, which is a skilful, twinkle-in-the-eye touch - as is Simon Callow’s thoughtful and beautifully timed Sir John Falstaff. And Callow’s deep baritone voice is a lovely musical instrument that lived up handsomely to the promise it made in the street that day a few weeks back.

Alistaire McGowan’s Frank Ford is a delight of paranoid comedy, and his singing and dancing skills are an absolute revelation. God, the hours that must have gone into it all is quite mind boggling.

It’s good to see Haydn Gwynne back with the RSC, with her portrayal of Mistress Page quite extraordinary, with her versatility abounding in both song and dance. Oh, and Simon Trinder, as Abraham Slender, is an utter delight, and a star in the making.

I’ll tell you something. It’s worth going to see this show just to see Dame Judi somersault her way across the stage after one particularly energetic dance routine. She does, honest.

Merry Wives: The Musical runs at the RST Main House until February 10th 2007.

For tickets go to the RSC site.

No matter where you go in Stratford-upon-Avon you’ll inevitably trip over a piece of history - or a broken paving slab, and a lot of those are pretty historic too - and the chances are it will have a Shakespearean, or at least a theatrical, connection.

Take the pubs for instance.

Most pubs in the town are long established, with many going back to Shakespeare’s time, some even have regular drinkers who look as if they go back to Shakespeare’s time, with others who should, just for the sake of the noise levels.

Perhaps the most famous is the Dirty Duck (or Black Swan, depending which way you approach it, or stagger from it) which is just down the road from the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, and has been an actors watering hole for over a century.

The walls of the small nicotine stained Public Bar - they had it repainted a couple of years ago with a special paint that looks nicotine stained, honestly - are covered in signed photographs of famous actors, most of whom are long dead, with others who should be when you consider some of the work they’ve been doing recently.

Go into the place on a cold winter’s evening around eight and the bar will be empty with the inevitable exception of a charming middle-aged couple who’ve had a lovely day out visiting the Shakespeare houses and are really looking forward to seeing the play they bought tickets for three months ago which actually started thirty minutes earlier when they were ordering their drinks. When they realise the time they leave in such a hurry they invariably leave either a coat, or umbrella, or a Jester’s Hat ( bought for a ridulous price at the Birthplace Gift shop) behind.

And you can imagine their noisy, apologetic entrance at the theatre a few minutes later as they look for their very expensive seats in the stalls.

“ I’m so sorry.”

“ I do beg your pardon.”

“ Ooops, was that your foot? So sorry.”

Of course the actors continue gamely as if nothing has happened, but can feel the words retreating at an alarming rate.

It has been a near perfect day for our couple. And of course the last little hiccup will be all his fault.

The Dirty Duck used to be the only pub in town that had a late licence - to accommodate the RSC actors, and their hangers-on - now just about every pub, and bar in Stratford stays open until the early hours, with the added attraction of a good fist fight if you’re really lucky.

But if you want to spot an actor you’ve never heard of, or a couple you think you recognise ( the Dame Judi Denches of this world go home for a nice cup of tea) then park yourself in the bar and listen:

” I swear if that twat of an assistant stage director comes anywhere near me again I shall stab him with me rapier. I mean who does he think he’s talking to?”

And so on, and on, and on…

One of the most easily recognisable photos in the bar is that of Peter O’Toole who had quite a reputation back in the early 1960s as something of a ‘roaring boy’ when it came to drinking at the Dirty Duck. In other words he got totally rat arsed just about every night after the show, and fell over a lot. This behaviour naturally embarrassed the theatre’s governors to such an extent that Peter Hall had to order O’Toole to stop boozing and take up drinking milk instead. Yes, milk. There’s a photo of him doing just that in The Daily Mail of July 1960. Mind you he’s still holding a fag between his fingers.

It was all a load of baloney of course, with his usual pint of Guiness just out of camera shot, and the Great O’Toole just took more care not to trip over a broken piece of history on his way home.

Steve Newman