We arrived back from Italy earlier this week (more of that later) and found Stratford gearing-up for a new annual event: The Stratford - upon-Avon Festival of Food & Drink, which has, over the last three days, proven to be a wonderful affair, with our fridge now stuffed with all sorts of Italian, French, and English goodies.

We also came across Roger Clay, who is the Secretary of the Stratford & Warwick Waterways Trust — SWWT for short — who is a thoroughly charming man with a fight on his hands to extend (or more accurately complete) navigation on the river Avon from Stratford to a junction with the Grand Union canal near Warwick. It’s a bold scheme that has met with a great deal of opposition over the years, although things are now looking promising. I believe it should happen, and the sooner the better.

A few weeks ago Hilary and I visited Charlecote Park (famed as the place where Shakespeare is supposed to have poached deer) just outside Stratford, where, after a look inside the house — which is a superb mixture of Elizabethan and Victorian — we wandered out onto the terraced garden at the back, where the Avon curves gently down from Warwick, through lush ‘hidden’ meadowland, toward the villages of Alveston and Tiddington just a couple of miles away.

We both agreed that such beautiful countryside, and important buildings such as Charlecote House – and some other fine 17th and 18th century buildings along the way - just had to be seen by as many people as possible (these things can no longer be kept purely for the enjoyment of the landowner, determined walker, or angler) and that this last watery link between the historic towns of Stratford and Warwick has to be completed, as outlined in the SWWT’s pamphlet.

“ The navigation proposal is known as the Upper Avon Extension (UAE) and is a continuation of the re-opening of the Avon from Tewkesbury to Evesham in 1962, and from Evesham to Stratford in 1974. It would fulfil the aims of a scheme first authorised in 1635.

“ Improved access to the river banks could be achieved by extending and joining together the footpaths that already exist near the river. The ultimate aim is for a continuous riverside walk between Warwick and Stratford.

“ The Trust recognises that these significant goals can be achieved only with the goodwill and co-operation of the many organisations and individuals who have concern for the interest in the river, in particular the local authorities, the riparian [water rights] owners, the wildlife interests and the many potential users.”

In fact it would seem that many local individuals, politicians, and organisations (the regional tourist bodies for instance) are now beginning to support the scheme as they realise that a river, and the land alongside it, has to earn its keep, and that tourism, especially in this part of the world, is a vital part of the financial life blood of the area, with more and more people taking river and canal holidays. So it came as a bit of a surprise that Warwick Castle (owned and run by Madame Tussauds, who are very commercially minded) is still apparently against the idea, as is Charlecote Park, which is now run by The National Trust, although members of the Fairfax-Lucy family ( who once employed many Newmans) still live in part of the building. But surely the financial return for both of those tourist attractions could be huge (and such buildings and estates need a lot of money to keep them going) especially if landing stages were built alongside that could take tourists straight off designated river boats, which means it would also be good for local boat building and river cruising operators from both towns, as well as increase the navigational opportunities in all directions, as the SWWT pamphlet points out.

“ The benefit for navigation interests are substantial. The Upper Avon Extension would create a non-tidal broad gauge link between the Severn and the Thames and complete a major step towards joining with the broad navigation network to the north which links the Mersey, the Humber and the Wash.”

The engineering work required would also be pretty straight forward, because the…

“ …waterway already exists with over 90% being fully navigable; very little dredging would be required. Six locks would be needed alongside existing weirs. A short canal near Barford would bypass a long shallow loop of the river. The navigable river would join the Grand Union canal near Warwick by four conventional locks or a lift.”

The world renowned actor — and narrow boat owner — Timothy West CBE, is the Patron of SWWT, who, at the inaugural meeting of the Trust said…

“ We can only hope that the accelerating countrywide interest in inland waterway development, the benefits of which are being appreciated steadily by more and more people, will finally filter through to those in authority…”

Well, it would appear they are, but there are a good many people still to be convinced, so, find out more about the work of the Stratford & Warwick Waterways Trust to offer help and support.

RSC’s Swan Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon, reviewed by Steve Newman.

As John pointed out in his recent piece for Stage Latest, Shakespeare’s Macbeth is a troublesome and dangerous piece of work, especially if the plays title is spoken within the confines of a theatre, and most dangerously if spoken within the confines of a theatre staging a production of the very bloody ‘Scottish Play’. When Hilary and I went to see an RSC production recently at the Swan here in Stratford we heard the title mentioned again and again in the foyer and the auditorium – usually by uncomprehending American students — and believe me no one did any compensatory spitting either – which is a pity, because soon afterwards the floods came, followed by Margaret Atwood’s The Penelopiad…

Macbeth is such a well known play – with, I would guess, at least half the world’s students studying the piece at any one time – that it’s almost impossible to write about it in any way that might make sense of the inner core of the piece, namely the quest for power at any price, including multiple murders, and the sure fact that you’re going bonkers as a result, and that crime doesn’t pay if you’re a brute of Scotsman with a complete nutter for a wife. So the best thing is to leave the play alone and concentrate on the performances.

Which I’ll do once I’ve mentioned how Conall Morrison’s direction, and his use of the Three Witches as commentators throughout the production, Witches who also became servants, and citizens (but still the Three Witches in disguise, no doubt thinking it was clever to give them more insight than Shakespeare ever intended, or had time for), which was disconcerting and messy, and, as I’ve said, too clever by half.

And if that wasn’t enough the play doesn’t start with the Witches in a ‘desert place’ but with Macbeth murdering babies (babies belonging to the Three Witches, who are representing the victims of war, which is okay, but has no place in this play) which destroys at the outset that Macbeth is a king who has to be cajoled into committing murder. That one scene destroyed Shakespeare’s intent, and our ability to follow Shakespeare’s argument that all men can be corrupted. This Macbeth is already corrupt, and a murdering bastard. And if that wasn’t enough we don’t see the Three Witches in a ‘desert place’, hubbling and bubbling, toiling and troubling, until after the interval. They belong at the start of the play. You can’t, shouldn’t, change a major theatrical cliché like that. Too clever by half, and uncomprehending of the authors intentions. All Morrison did by his ‘clever’ meddling was make a well known, well constructed piece dreadfully weak. Unless you are a director of the calibre of Sir Peter Hall or Trevor Nunn (well known meddlers themselves of course) who are on a par with Shakespeare, and understand the man inside out, don’t ever try and make him say other than he intended.

The consequence was that the actors had to try and save Conall Morrison’s inept direction; and save it they did.

Actually, most of it was down to one man – Patrick O’Kane.

This is Patrick’s debut season at the RSC, although I see he’s done his fair share of TV, including the superb ‘Waking the Dead’ with Trevor Eve, and, inevitably, that most enduring of British soaps, ‘Eastenders’.

But this young man has a natural stage presence (it’s almost impossible to count his stage credits), with a voice, personality, and emotional range, that soon stripped Morrison’s direction away like cheap paint - bringing the audience back to the play by sheer force of will — and an ability to discharge Shakespeare’s words like canon shells from the nose of a Messerschmitt ME109, so powerful was his ability to recreate the iconic nature of Macbeth: a man seemingly so powerful – with a thoroughly bad woman behind him who scratches away what goodness there is - and yet so doomed to failure that at times this production almost turned into something approaching a one man show, as no doubt did Glamis some 950 years ago.

But O’Kane’s power and sweat ( and did he sweat), which could easily have overpowered the whole production, became a stimulus to the other actors, who had to double their efforts to simply keep up. I saw the same thing happen a couple of seasons ago when fellow Irishman, Jonjo O’Neill, tore the Swan stage apart. If you get a chance to see Patrick O’Kane in the sweating flesh do so because it will be one of the most rewarding nights you’ll ever have in the theatre. He’s a star in the making.

Patrick O’Kane was most ably supported by Derbhle Crotty as Lady Macbeth, Brian Doherty as a wonderfully humane and brave Macduff, Pauline Hutton as a wholly convincing Lady Macduff; and most especially David Troughton as Duncan, who bestrode the stage with an assurance that only comes from having barrow-loads of theatrical skill; we haven’t seen enough of David on the Stratford stage recently.

And then, earlier this week, came Margaret Atwood’s The Penelopiad.

Now, I like the Canadian novelists work, and as a consequence was looking forward to seeing this play. It was a huge disappointment.

This production was done in association with Canada’s National Arts Centre, so we expected it to be slightly worthy in tone, which is fine, and hopefully funny and sarcastic and cynical and maybe even controversial, which is also fine.

Well, it was funny at the beginning, when the hugely talented Penny Downie, as Penelope, is seen standing beneath a top spot where, in the manner of a sophisticated stand-up comedienne, she complains about being dead, about having been married to Odysseus, about waiting all that time for Odysseus, which brought forth jollity. This was promising stuff we thought – good vintage Atwood. That is until the Maids arrived, and I realised we had a wholly female cast on our hands, which is okay by me if they’re playing females, but not if one of them suddenly becomes Penelope’s father, then another Odysseus himself, and then a supposedly nasty bunch of suitors who wouldn’t frighten a sparrow out of a hedge at two inches. That’s when it all went wrong for me, and for Hilary, and the play became little more than a badly staged drama school offering that was over worthy in tone, unfunny, over sarcastic and cynical to the point where my inbuilt cringe detector went on red alert and I thought I might have to stand up and tell them to stop it. Luckily, with the show only lasting 105 minutes, and no interval, which was a blessing, we were out of the theatre pretty quickly and heading for the Shakespeare Hotel for a much needed drink.

I’ve had this argument before about women playing men – it can’t be done, not today, not after 400 years of play making, not after we’ve seen the great duets of Burton and Taylor, Paul Robeson and Peggy Ashcroft. It can’t be done, not unless you want to make a complete ass of yourself, or you want to take the piss, in which case it’s usually confined to bad TV comedy where no one gives a damn anyway. But up there on the stage of the RSC’s Swan I don’t want to see a young woman pretending to be a man pretending to rape another young woman. It doesn’t work because the barriers between forgetting reality and imagining that what is going on on stage is real – even for thirty seconds – cannot be crossed. It’s simply bad theatre, and director Josette Bushell-Mingo, who is very good, should have known better. Had men played the men than it could have turned into a masterful piece of work.

Margaret Atwood should never have allowed this production to happen.

Royal Shakespeare Company’s Courtyard Theatre, Stratford.

Hilary and I should have been going to see Sir Ian McKellen in Trevor Nunn’s production of King Lear at the Courtyard Theatre here in Stratford back in April, but all press tickets were withdrawn after Frances Barber - who plays Goneril - badly injured her knee in a cycling accident. The reason given for the withdrawal is that Frances’s understudy, Melanie Jessop, needs more time to learn the part (plus Barber’s part in The Seagull, which is running alongside in rep) sufficiently well before the press are allowed in to comment, or, alternatively, give Frances longer to recover so that she can take on the part again.

We now hear that Frances Barber will not be resuming her roles (although I saw her in Stratford last week on crutches), and that press tickets will not be available until after the 31st of May, which means there will be less than four weeks left of the show’s run; and there is to be no extension. The show continues to run in preview, and is doing good business.

My only fear is that the press will think it pointless turning-up to review a production (and Trevor Nunn is still in town looking very weary) that has less than four weeks to run.

But worry not, we shall be there.