The Tempest
O brave new world, That has such people in't!
Act IV, scene 1
Why see The Tempest?
Oh Wonder!
Shakespeare's island-bound drama returns to the Globe as part of the 2022 summer season. Enthralling and immersive, this brand new production of The Tempest is an atmospheric tale of shipwreck and sorcery on a spell-binding isle, ruled over by the vengeful Prospero, and his unerring determination to wreak havoc on his former oppressors.
What is the story?
The play concerns Prospero, the Duke of Milan, who has been usurped by his brother. He resides on a remote island, where he considers how he might find a way to restore his daughter, Miranda to her rightful place as heiress to the title. He resolves that he must turn to magic, to conjure a fearsome storm to lure his brother away from Venice to the island.
A sense of spirituality and magic lies at the core of this play, which empathetically deals with notions of resentment, forgiveness, and enlightenment, as well as displaying the acute understanding of the human condition which made Shakespeare so celebrated, and so important.
Key Information
Run Time
TBC
Dates
Finished 22 Oct 2022
Cast
Roger Allam as Prospero
Jason Baughan as Antonio
Jessie Buckley as Miranda
Sam Cox as Stephano
Pip Donaghy as Gonzalo
Trevor Fox as Trinculo
Peter Hamilton Dyer as Alonso
James Garnon as Caliban
Joshua James as Ferdinand
William Mannering as Sebastian
Colin Morgan as Ariel
Sarah Sweeney as Iris
Amanda Wilkin as Ceres
Creative
Directed by Jeremy Herrin
Composed by Stephen Warbeck
Designed by Max Jones
Reviews
Customer reviews
LP
Riding out the Storm
As the serpentine Lord Voldemort, Ralph Fiennes proved he can brandish a wand with malicious intent. Now, as he steps into the shoes of one of the literary grandfathers of nuanced magic, Shakespeare’s Prospero, it’s clear that Fiennes can summon up even greater powers.
Headlining Trevor Nunn’s strictly-limited run of The Tempest, he quietly commands the stage- delivering Prospero’s rich monologues with a brilliantly subtle conviction. It’s not an overstated performance, as the character of Prospero tends to be with all its emphasis on magic and vengeance, and I think it works well within Nunn’s somewhat anachronistic approach to the play’s staging. This is a production that relies less on a hi-tech bag of tricks to create illusion than on aerial pulleys upon which acrobatic cast members pivot and fly above the stage- an unusual throwback to an Elizabethan system of wires and winches that is refreshing in our technological age.
Yet although Nunn’s play is grounded in tradition, I felt the opening tempest itself was disappointingly unconvincing- as if the sound effect box was at its lowest volume. Given that this is the eponymous tempest, it was not nearly dramatic enough and, in my opinion, a hugely imbalanced spectacle. Quieter moments could have benefitted from a few better-timed violent thunderclaps, whilst the ones that did boom and crash served only to drown out some of the script’s key lines. The projection of moving waves, with the actors acrobatically spinning in tandem behind, seemed a bit flat- imaginative circus acts may be entertaining, but they do not whip up a credible storm. Later, the visionary dogs that hound Stephano, Trinculo and Caliban seemed almost laughable as cast members pounced onstage on all fours-another instance when a bit of CGI wouldn’t have gone amiss.
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paul Christopher
b+
If you like a muted Prospero then you will enjoy Ralph Fiennes. His performance might work on a movie screen but was a yawn in the Royal Haymarket.
At times, I wasn't sure if this was the Tempest or Caliban the musical
Ariel was played most cleverly by a trio of talent
On the whole this Tempest shouldn't be missed
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