Being Shakespeare
Simon Callow has a personality big enough to fill any stage. He’s been
acting for almost four decades, directed plays and a movie, written several
books and already performed one man shows about Oscar Wilde and Charles
Dickens.
But this often most flamboyant of actors is in comparatively
subdued, though still enthusiastic, form as he tackles William Shakespeare,
following him from cradle to grave in Shakespearian scholar Jonathan Bate’s
well-structured combination of biographical detail, speculation and extracts
from the Bard’s works.
Keeping to the timeline of the famous Seven Ages of Man speech from As You
Like It, Callow entertains us with snippets of information about
Shakespeare’s parents (his father was a glovemaker), his childhood, early
marriage, career and death, interspersed with illustrative examples from his
texts.
Slipping in and out of character, Callow gives us not only a
schoolboy William but also an ageing Falstaff, not only Romeo but Juliet
too.
Callow is a fine actor and a well-informed guide with obvious fondness for
his subject, and although it can’t and doesn’t penetrate too deeply into
the psyche of the famous playwright himself, this simply staged evening has
something to offer both the Shakespeare aficionado and the tentative novice.
3/5
Trafalgar Studios 1, Whitehall, SW1A 2DY
0844 871 7632
Tube: Charing Cross
ambassadortickets.com/trafalgarstudios
beingshakespeare.com
Until 23rd July
£20- £45
– Louise Kingsley
