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Tweedy the clown gets to the Bottom of his first Shakespearean role in A Midsummer Night’s Dream at York Theatre Royal

Look into my eyes: Tweedy’s Bottom and Natalie Windsor’s Titania in Cheltenham Everyman Theatre Company’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Picture: Andrew Huggins/Thousand Word Media

PROFESSIONAL clown Tweedy will be making an ass of himself as “rude mechanical” Nick Bottom in A Midsummer Night’s Dream at York Theatre Royal from April 9 to 13.

Cheltenham Everyman Theatre Company director Paul Milton has not only put this new twist on Shakespeare’s tale of magic, mischief and mayhem but appointed the Scottish-born performer as the “comedy advisor” too, utilising his clowning knowledge to give the touring production a modern facelift.

“Throw in Tweedy’s physical slapstick, and we think this is a really enjoyable show for everybody, especially families and students,” says Milton of his aim to “create an accessible Shakespeare show that will appeal to a present-day audience”.

Tweedy will be making his second appearance in York after being one of 35 international acts in Cirque Berserk’s February 2015 show at the Grand Opera House. “There were no animals, apart from a man in a horse’s head pulling a mini-caravan,” read the Press review. “There was a clown, Tweedy from Scotland, with his juggling and unicycling and unfeasibly large and loose trousers.”

Tweedy appears regularly in the Everyman pantomime and also performed in Samuel Beckett’s tragicomedy Waiting For Godot in 2019, prompting chief executive Mark Goucher to put his name forward to director Paul Milton for Bottom: his first ever Shakespearean role (although he did direct Redshift Theatre in Much Ado About Nothing “a long time ago”).

“They suggested Bottom to me and I went ‘yeah’, because it’s a great role…but then initially I wasn’t 100 per cent sure because when I’ve seen Bottom being played, he’s quite arrogant and not that likeable, and as I play the clown, that didn’t feel quite right,” says Tweedy.

Such a comic ass-et: Tweedy the clown in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Picture: Andrew Huggins/Thousand Word Media

“But I just had to think about how I would play him. I realised that it’s not dissimilar to how I clown around in that he gets super-excited. That over-excitement leads to him saying he can do anything, and in that child-like quality, I can see the clown in him.”

Tweedy brings his clowning skills to his second role as comedy advisor for Shakespeare’s tale of love, mistaken identity and reconciliation, set in an enchanted forest wherein the romantic misadventures of four young lovers, the playful meddling of mischievous fairies and the comedic antics of amateur actors (the “rude mechanicals”) intertwine.

“The beauty of physical comedy is you don’t need to rewrite anything; you just add slapstick to what’s already there,” he says. “As a clown I find physical comedy appeals to all ages and generations, so I’m excited to add this element to the production.

“Putting a lot of physicality and slapstick in there feels really good with the mechanicals team I’m working with.”

As for his own performance as Bottom: “There’s the romantic thing going on with Titania, but there’s also that ridiculous thing of being transformed into an ass. Physically that’s fun to play,” he says.

Tweedy is joined in the cast by his old friend Jeremy Stockwell as the meddlesome Puck after playing Estragon to Stockwell’s Vladimir in the Everyman Theatre’s Waiting For Godot. “Paul [Milton] put us together for that, and afterwards I said ‘No, never again with Paul!” he says, playfully as it turns out, because Stockwell was within hearing distance after entering the rehearsal room.

Tweedy the clown with his trademark red tuft

In truth Tweedy had loved performing that play alongside Stockwell. “You’re on stage the whole time,” he says. “I see them as clowns in a dire situation, and you know what they say about clowns: ‘when you look into the eyes of a good clown, you see the humour in the human condition’,” he says.

“Jeremy and I come from similar backgrounds; we love to play and draw the audiences in so they feel involved, and of course we love to create mischief, so I’m really looking forward to having lots of fun.

“Bottom and Puck don’t spend much time together in the play, but Jeremy is also playing one of the mechanicals, Smug, so we do have scenes together. It’s always great if you have chemistry with someone as it becomes infectious. The thing with the clown is to have fun and joy, and when audience sees how much joy you’re having, it rubs off on everyone else. We’re very lucky that it’s a great cast, where we’re having great fun with the play.”

Should you be wondering how Tweedy acquired that name, he explains: “When I first joined Zippo’s Circus, I was going to call myself  ‘Weedy the clown’ as my last name is Digweed, but I was told there was already a Weedy, so Zippo himself suggested adding the ‘T’ to make it Tweedy. It just felt right and had a Scottish connection too.”

As ever, Tweedy will be parading his trademark red tuft. “When I first started, I wore big traditional make-up, big shoes etc,” he says. “I never really liked wigs so dyed all my hair red. During a show I did a routine where I’d fall into a birthday cake; I’d lie there for a really long time; I found it got good laughs just to lie there.

“One day, however, the candles didn’t go out. I was lying there thinking, ‘this is getting a bigger reaction than usual’. I then smelled singed hair and realised my hair was on fire. Luckily, I wasn’t hurt. All that was left was a red tuft, which I really liked the look of, so I kept it. I like to think of it as a modern equivalent of a red nose as I no longer wear a clown nose.”

Cheltenham Everyman Theatre Company in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, York Theatre Royal, April 9 to 13, 7pm plus 2pm Thursday and 2.30pm Saturday matinees. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

Copyright of The Press, York

Did you know?

TWEEDY has worked as a comic stuntman at Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show at Disneyland
Paris, performing alongside cowboys and Native Americans.

And finally…

How did you react to receiving a British Empire Medal (BEM) for services to circus and the local community in the honours list, Tweedy?
“Initially confused. I nearly didn’t get it; for some reason they couldn’t get hold of me to accept it; they phoned my agent who thought it was a joke. By the time I got the email to accept, the deadline had passed. Lucky they didn’t stick to the deadline.

“When it was announced, I felt very proud. It’s not something as a clown I expected. It’s also good news for circus as it’s the first time it’s been specifically for circus, opposed to entertainment.”

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Maggie Smales to direct The Taming Of The Shrew for York Shakespeare Project at York International Shakespeare Festival

Maggie Smales: Directing York Shakespeare Project in The Taming Of The Shrew. All pictures: SR Taylor

YORK Shakespeare Project welcomes back Maggie Smales to direct The Taming Of The Shrew, Shakespeare’s controversial battle of the sexes, at Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, from April 23 to 27.

“We are absolutely delighted to have Maggie as our director,” says YSP chair Tony Froud. “We know that she will find an exciting way to let the play speak to us in 2024.”

This is the first time that Maggie has directed for York Shakespeare Project since her all-female version of Henry V, chosen as “York Play of the Year” in the 2015 Hutch Awards.

Chesca Downes: Playing Kate in The Taming Of The Shrew

YSP’s multi-coloured psychedelic poster announces the production’s setting in 1970. The Sixties have shaken off the post-Second World War blues. The baby boomers are growing up, primed and ready to do their own thing. The world is opening up, promising peace, love and equality. Surely, The Times They Are a’Changin’ and the old order is dead? Or is it, asks Smales’s production.

“This will actually be my third encounter with this play,” she says. “I played in it as a youngster in Rotherham in South Yorkshire Theatre for Youth in the 1960s, then as a Bretton Hall drama student in 1970, and it was experiences of those days that gave me the inspiration for my ideas for this production.”

At the centre of the play are Kate and Petruchio, played in Franco Zeffirelli’s 1967 film version by Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton. YSP’s Kate is University of York student Chesca Downes, in her first YSP role after playing a number of major roles at the university, such as the duchess in The Duchess Of Malfi.

Jim Paterson: Playing Petruchio for a second time

Opposite her will be Jim Paterson, a face more familiar to YSP audiences, who will recall his lead roles in The Two Noble Kinsmen, Cymbeline and Antony And Cleopatra. He is no stranger to the part of Petruchio, having played him in Cole Porter’s musical Kiss Me Kate in 2019.

Further roles go to Rosy Rowley as Baptista Minola; Kirsty Farrow, Bianca; Mark Payton, Gremio; Nick Patrick Jones, Hortensio; Sam Jackson, Lucentio; Mark Simmonds, Vincentio; Lara Stafford, Tranio; Cari Hughes, Biondello; Stuart Green, Grumio, and Joy Warner, Merchant and Widow.

As YSP’s second cycle of staging all of Shakespeare’s plays over 25 years rolls on, The Taming Of The Shrew will be performed as part of the 2024 York International Shakespeare Festival. Tickets for the 7.30pm evening performances and 2.30pm Saturday matinee are on sale at boxoffice@41monkgate.co.uk.

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REVIEW: Charles Hutchinson’s verdict on Macbeth’s return to Leeds Playhouse *****

Jessica Baglow’s Lady Macbeth and Ash Hunter’s Macbeth

WHEN shall we meet Amy Leach’s Macbeth again? Only two years to the month since its Leeds Playhouse premiere.

Sixty-nine schools from across Yorkshire attended the 2022 run, “introducing more than 5,000 students to the excitement and lasting resonance of Macbeth – and giving some of them their first electrifying experience of live theatre,” as artistic director and chief executive James Brining recalls in his programme notes.

Even more school-friendly matinees have been fitted in for the return of GCSE Eng Lit set text Macbeth, supported by a programme of resources and activities to “bring additional depth and breadth to students’ appreciation of this incredible play”.

Striking up a pre-show conversation with the student in the neighbouring back-row seat at Thursday’s lunchtime matinee, she had first seen a version of Macbeth when she was ten and it had since become her favourite play. Now she is studying its psychology on her GCSE course.

And what a psychological thriller to be watching to elucidate those studies, in a theatre full to the brim with excited school uniforms, all enraptured from start to finish by Leach’s vision of all-inclusive theatre-making. Theatre for all the senses, all audiences, all performers, deaf, visually impaired, included. Each performance has integrated audio description.

Think of modern theatrical retellings of historical stories with nods to concert culture, and up pops SIX The Musical, the Spouse Girls’ revenge of Henry VIII’s wives. Another controversial king, Macbeth, is now framed in a setting that would not be out of place in a stadium rock show.

A huge drawbridge hangs heavy over Hayley Grindle’s stage. Searchlights scan the auditorium from metallic towers spread out like a forest. Fog enfolds. Deafening noise bursts through the air. For those about to rock, however, stop. You notice a puddle of water; muddy ground; grit too. Something witchy this way comes.

Enter the weather-watchful Witches (Charlotte Arrowsmith, Karina Jones and Elkanah Wilder, all from 2022), spinning opening words that are re-shaped, re-ordered, with rhythms afresh, their sound as important as their meaning.

What’s this? Macbeth (Ash Hunter, last seen on Yorkshire boards as Heathcliff in Wise Children’s Wuthering Heights at York Theatre Royal) and Lady Macbeth (the returning Jessica Baglow) are cradling a new-born baby, only for the bairn to die within a heartbeat.

In the Playhouse’s wish to “explore the damaging physical, spiritual and psychological effects of treachery on those who seek power at any cost”, Leach has put child loss, lineage and legacy at the heart of the Macbeths’ behaviour, the acts of murder, the need to eliminate all threats to their ill-gotten power.

Leach then takes it even further, Baglow’s Lady Macbeth being pregnant when she beseeches “unsex me here” and later suffering a miscarriage as blood seeps through her nightgown. Come the finale, Leach adds prescient text to give a foretaste of Banquo’s son, Fleance, becoming king as the Witches had prophesied.

Those Witches typify Leach and Brining’s “commitment to accessible and inclusive theatre-making”, as does the participation of the blind Benjamin Wilson as audio description consultant.

Supernatural soliciting: Elkanah Wilder, Karina Jones and Charlotte Arrowsmith’s Witches in Amy Leach’s Macbeth. Picture: Kirsten McTernan

Among the witches, Karina Jones is visually impaired and Charlotte Arrowsmith is profoundly deaf, while Elkanah Wilder “interrogates multifaceted sociopolitical oppressions from a queer and disabled lens”.

Here, Shakespeare’s “weird sisters” are neither weird, nor alien, in the way they are often played, but are as wild as the landscape instead.

Arrowsmith also plays Lady MacDuff, partnered once more by the profoundly deaf Hull actor Adam Bassett as MacDuff. Paul Brown’s Lennox vocally interprets the sign language, complementing the intensity of Bassett’s expressive face, hands and arms with the staccato rhythms of his speech.

Learning of, spoiler alert, his wife and children’s deaths is even more shocking, heart-rending, in this form of news delivery: theatre at its unique best, living and breathing in the rawness of the moment.

Not only do lighting designer Chris Davey’s searchlights induce a sense of paranoia (later turning from white to red after yet more murdering), but relentlessly oppressive natural elements prevail too, along with the sound and fury of machismo war.

These are all big, muscular, mud-and-blood splattered men, ready to rut like stags, except for Aosaf Afzal’s King Duncan; their physicality being emphasised by Georgina Lamb’s movement direction and Claire Lewellyn’s fight direction. Likewise, Nicola T Chang’s sound design adds to the cacophony.

Macbeth’s vaulting ambition may in part be represented by the drawbridge, crowned when on top of it, but broken beneath it, but Leach’s production is deeply human amid the technology.

In the relationship of Hunter’s reactionary Macbeth and Baglow’s more intuitive Lady Macbeth, the shifting sands become less about calculating mind games, controlled initially by her, more about brute physicality and brutal will, imposed by him, as intense love and mutual hopes are snuffed out in the face of ultimate destiny being beyond their control, whether shaped by supernatural witchcraft or the resurrection of natural order.

Hunter’s Macbeth is as physical in his language as in his pugilist’s body, his soliloquies carrying the force of punches amid the fevered actions of his bloody rise and fall. He is so spent – “Enough, enough, I am done” – that he lays down to let Macduff administer the final blow.

Above all, Leach puts Lady Macbeth’s motives under the spotlight, and if purists feel she has gone too far in doing so, the reality is that Baglow’s performance is all the better, more rounded, for it.  

Risk-taking change can be liberating, rather than be judged as taking liberties, as Leach’s emboldened Playhouse productions affirm, from Romeo And Juliet to Macbeth X 2.

What’s more, there is no damned spot to ‘out’ here. Leach’s Macbeth was already beyond blemish in 2022 and is even better in 2024.

Macbeth, Leeds Playhouse, today at 2pm and 7.30pm. Box office: 0113 213 7700 or leedsplayhouse.org.uk.

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Hoglets Theatre in the mood for mischief in Shakespeare’s Dream of a children’s show

Hoglets Theatre’s Gemma Curry, left, Claire Morley and Becky Lennon in A Midsummer Night’s Mischief

EVERYTHING is kicking off in the forest as the fairies start a fight, but which side will you be on in the York Theatre Royal Studio on Friday and Saturday? Team Titania or Team Oberon?

Be prepared for York company Hoglets Theatre’s interactive, fun, larger-than-life production for young children – ideally aged two to nine, but everyone is welcome – spun around Shakespeare’s daftest romantic comedy A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

Expect wild characters, raucous singalong songs with lyrics by Andy Curry and Lara Pattison, puppets, stunts and some frankly ridiculous disco dancing from director/writer Gemma Curry and fellow cast members Claire Morley and Becky Lennon.

Costumes by Julia Smith, set design by Andy Curry and choreography by Charlotte Wood – who appeared in earlier performances – all add to the magic of Hoglets Theatre’s tenth show, one that requires no previous experience of Shakespeare.

“It’s the most accessible of his plays – with fairies in it – and definitely the easiest to get into,” says Gemma. “We first did it five years ago with Lara Stafford, Rachel Wilkinson and me – all of us with two-year-old children at the time! – and children would hear the name ‘Bottom’ and laugh, and we thought, ‘oh yes, we’ve got it with this one’!

“We always have so much fun when we do it: for a morning or an afternoon, I can pretend to be a fairy, not a grown-up!”

Each performance starts with the cast – in this instance Curry, Morley and Lennon – covering their fairy wings in the cloaked guise of Macbeth’s three Witches, arguing over which play they should do.

“One says ‘Macbeth’, one says ‘Hamlet’, one says ‘A Winter’s Tale’,” Gemma says. “They have this huge argument and then decide that Shakespeare should decide via a version of [The Human League’s] Don’t You Want Me Baby?, changing the lyrics to take in all of Shakespeare’s plays as they perform in coats, wigs, moustaches and bald caps.

Claire Morley, left, choreographer Charlotte Wood and Gemma Curry in an earlier Hoglets Theatre performance of A Midsummer Night’s Mischief

“The last words to the song are Midsummer Night’s Dream, so we decide to do that one. Then we ask, ‘do you want to be involved?’, and that’s gone really well, apart from in Skipton, where this older chap ended up having to do all the roles!”

Curry, Morley and Lennon take on the role of three of Shakespeare’s four fairies in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Mustardseed, Moth and Peaseblossom, who will spilt the audience down the middle to take sides as Team Titania (Queen of the Fairies in Shakespeare’s play) and Team Oberon (King of the Fairies).

“In the years we’ve done the show, Peaseblossom was done originally by Lara Pattison, then by Charlotte Wood, and now in comes Becky, and it’s lovely how everyone brings their own personality to it,” says Gemma.

“We change characters with the change of a hat, so whoever wears Titania’s hat is Titania; the same for Puck. We skim over the young lovers, but we do have a little song about who loves whom that gets quicker and quicker, sillier and sillier, and becomes more and more exhausting for us.”

Hoglets Theatre’s show revels in Puck’s final speech in Shakespeare’s play – “If we shadows have offended, think but this, and all is mended” – in the lead-up to a variation on Taylor Swift’s Shake It Off. “We do it as Shake A Spear with a disco ball and flashing lights, and the children love it,” says Gemma.

Children have plenty of opportunities to be involved, inviting them to play the four lovers, four fairies and four ‘mechanicals’ towards the end. “So many schools don’t do music or drama now or don’t have a creative outlet, so it’s lovely to involve them,” she says.

Away from her Hoglets productions, Gemma is working on a project in tandem with York Theatre Royal on the theme of children’s mental health, developing a piece called The Girl Who Stole Smiles.

“I wrote the original story seven years ago, when I had post-natal depression after the birth of Berowne. To explain how I felt to Berowne, I wrote a story about a girl who was unhappy, who stole smiles by building a machine that sucked smiles off people’s faces,” she says.

Hoglets Theatre’s poster for A Midsummer Night’s Mischief

“I had this story for ages and arranged to meet Juliet [creative director Juliet Forster]  at the Theatre Royal, knowing she was heavily involved with a mental health charity. Last year Becky, Charlotte and I spent three months working with Knavesmire, Dunnington and Westfield primary schools with funding from city council ward funding.

“We did three 90-minute workshops for children aged four to nine, asking them what they understood about their mental health and the mental health of people around them. Then we looked at the commonalities and recurring themes between the three schools, working with the NHS Wellbeing In Mind team that goes into a number of York primary and secondary schools.

“We now have a 50-page report on children’s mental health in primary schools, highlighting what affects them most. I thought that after the pandemic the answer would be ‘depression’, but no, it’s ‘anxiety’.”

A week of research and development followed at York Theatre Royal. “We adapted the script so that the girl now had a worry that no-one took seriously until finally her smile broke, and so shew builds the machine to steal smiles,” says Gemma.

“We’re now going back into the Theatre Royal for more research and development with Juliet co-directing it. She’s been so supportive, but the Arts Council has turned us down three times for funding, so we’re looking at different avenues.”

Hoglets Theatre in A Midsummer Night’s Mischief, York Theatre Royal Studio, Friday, 4.30pm and Saturday, 10.30am. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

Did you know?

HOGLETS Theatre’s last show was a spectacular Christmas performance of The Nutcracker at York Minster, accompanied by the cathedral organ no less.

Did you know too?

HOGLETS Theatre performed A Midsummer Night’s Mischief at Bradford Literature Festival to 1,000 children. “That was the most terrifying day of my life,” says Gemma. “I had to give an opening speech about Shakespeare to all these children, and loads of academics were there too.”

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Team Titania or Team Oberon? Which side will you be on in Hoglets Theatre’s A Midsummer Night’s Mischief?

Hoglets Theatre’s poster for A Midsummer Night’s Mischief, playing York Theatre Royal Studio on March 8 and 9

THE fairies in the forest are starting a fight, but which side are you on? Team Titania or Team Oberon? Come on down! It’s all kicking off in the forest in Hoglets Theatre’s Shakespeare-loving children’s play A Midsummer Night’s Mischief at York Theatre Royal on March 8 and 9.

Based on Shakespeare’s comedy A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the York company’s interactive, larger-than-life, fun production is designed especially for five to 11-year-old children, but everyone is welcome.

“Expect wild characters, raucous singalong songs, puppets, stunts, and some frankly ridiculous disco dancing,” says Hoglets Theatre founder, writer and performer Gemma Curry. “While we love the bard, no previous experience of Shakespeare is required!”

A Midsummer Night’s Mischief is the tenth Hoglets production, following on from their sell-out Yorkshire tours of Wood Owl And The Box Of Wonders and The Sleep Pirates and December 9’s two spectacular Christmas performances of The Nutcracker at York Minster, accompanied by the cathedral organ no less.

Writer Gemma will be joined in the cast at York Theatre Royal by Claire Morley and Becky Lennon, who replaces Charlotte Wood from earlier performances. Song lyrics are by Andy Curry and Lara Pattison; costumes by Julia Smith; set design by Andy Curry and choreography by Charlotte Wood.

Hoglets Theatre in A Midsummer Night’s Mischief, York Theatre Royal Studio, March 8, 4.30pm; March 9, 10.30am. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk/show/midsummer-mischief/

Claire Morley, left, Charlotte Wood and Gemma Curry in an earlier performance of Hoglets Theatre’s A Midsummer Night’s Mischief

Hoglets Theatre CIC: the back story

Not-for-profit children’s theatre company and associate children’s theatre company of York Theatre Royal.

Stages original theatrical productions across the country, aimed at primary and preschool-aged children.

Runs interactive workshops for schools, libraries and groups.

Provides child-centric consultation and content creation for museums, organisations, apps and publications.

Mission statement: “Everything we do is centred around storytelling and the amazing impact that stories, imagination and creativity can have on young minds.”

Find out more at hoglets.org.uk.

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REVIEW: Watford Palace Theatre in The Merchant Of Venice 1936, at York Theatre Royal until Saturday ***

Tracy-Ann Oberman’s East End pawnbroker and single mother Shylock in The Merchant Of Venice 1936, set in Cable Street, London, with Oswald Mosley’s Blackshirts on the march

NOTHING will stop The Merchant Of Venice being a problem play, and that’s the problem. Especially against the backdrop of the hell of the Gaza Strip. Suella Braverman’s P45. The English Defence League on the attack. Peaceful Armistice Day protests in London and beyond, demanding a ceasefire, or was that antisemitism?

Amid this tempest, Jewish actress Tracy-Ann Oberman and director Brigid Larmour’s new adaptation of Shakespeare’s vituperative play arrives in York: a city with the darkest stain of history from the Jewish massacre at the site of Clifford’s Tower on March 16 1190, but with a new chapter opened after this autumn’s arrival of Rabbi Dr Elisheva Salamo as the spiritual leader of the York Liberal Jewish Community.

Is The Merchant Of Venice antisemitic, cursed by Shakespeare’s depiction of moneylender Shylock as English literature’s most archetypal Jewish character? “I think its legacy is antisemitic. So yes, I suppose it is an antisemitic play,” Oberman told the Guardian during rehearsals for this Watford Palace Theatre production in February.

Henry Goodman, who won an Olivier Award for his Shylock in Trevor Nunn’s 1999 National Theatre production, said in the same piece: “I think it depicts antisemitism, but is not antisemitic because it humanises.”

Abigail Graham, Jewish director of The Globe’s “radical” 2022 production, defined the play thus: “It’s not a play about antisemitism,” the Guardian quoted her. “It’s about the intersection between white supremacy, capitalism, patriarchy, antisemitism and racism”.  

Why this preamble? You could make a case for each assessment, but ultimately the argument over whether The Merchant Of Venice is antisemitic will never be decided by any one production.

Ultimately, Graham has it right in referring to the intersection, one that now defines British or, more to the point, English discomfort at our colonial past and its continuing impact.

Let’s call The Merchant Of Venice an “uncomfortable” play, one where Shakespeare has Portia destroy Shylock in court, for the moneylender to slink away never to be heard again, only for a jocund ending to follow with fun and games over wedding rings as if we had strayed into one of his summer-lit comedies.

Unlike Shylock, Oberman and Larmour are not content to let it end there, instead adding a coda to round off the 1936 setting amid the rising tide of Oswald Mosley’s British Union of Fascist Blackshirts, on the march through Cable Street in London’s East End on October 4 that year.

All Larmour’s cast strip off glad rags and fascist appareil to stand with Oberman’s Shylock, behind her banner They Shall Not Pass “We are stronger, prouder and safer together,” is her message, as she urges all the audience to its feet. (Well, that’s one way to ensure a standing ovation as sems to be becoming increasingly obligatory at theatre shows.)

Not everyone obliged, perhaps uneasy that the problems highlighted by this problematic play are more complicated, more nuanced, than that.

Shakespeare’s play has “always fascinated and repulsed” Oberman. “I don’t like it. I’ve never liked it,” she said. Does anyone “like it”, however? It is not Hamlet, nor King Lear, more questions than answers, but she wanted to “reclaim Shylock”, not to play Shylock for sympathy, nor shy away from the villainy, but to show why Shylock “becomes the monster that they make her” in the face of Jewish persecution.

Traditionally a male role, Oberman has taken inspiration from her great-grandmother’s hardy, dignified East London generation to depict Shylock as a Cable Street pawnbroker and single mother with an errant daughter (Grainne Dromgoole’s Jessica), played as righteous, resolute, rigorous and wronged.

This adds gender and misogyny to the degradation of the spat-upon Shylock at the hands of Raymond Coulthard’s sneering Antonio, dressed all in Mosley black, as he mocks her demand for her pound of flesh on failing to meet the terms of his bond.

Liz Cooke’s design depicts Shylock’s Cable Street home in drab, brutalist grey brick. By contrast, Portia’s film-noir high society elegance is denoted by a marble floor, a white curtain and silk dresses; Antonio’s business world by a chandelier.

Greta Zabulyte’s matching black and white video design begins with Mosley mid-speech, to be followed by fascist posters, newspaper headlines and period footage, all leading up to the Battle of Cable Street. Sarah Weltman’s sound design of smashed windows and loud, threatening voices and Erran Baron Cohen’s piano compositions shadow what is unfolding with haunting inevitability. The Star of David is highlighted on the wall, but Jew Dog is scrawled on Shylock’s door.

As mentioned earlier, one problem in The Merchant Of Venice is the contrasting tones: the chortling comedy of Portia’s hapless suitors seeking to win  her hand, topped off by Gavin Fowler’s outwardly charming Bossanio, as if in a Noel Coward or Oscar Wilde comedy of manners, but the visceral, shocking hatred of Shylock, as exemplified by the thuggish excesses of Xavier Starr’s Gratiano. You can but choke on the comedy.

The transition of York-born Hannah Morrish’s Portia – my other character is a Portia too – typifies this dichotomy. Aloof but irresistibly attractive society belle, all-hours socialite, scheming aristocrat, as if she were the seventh Mitford sister, but then she becomes, as Oberman has indelicately put it, an effing bitch in her chilling courtroom humbling of Shylock.

This is a high-quality production, from design to vocal delivery, if fast-moving rather than moving, with well edited dialogue and a modernity to its theatricality and tone.

Does Obeman “reclaim Shylock” in what she calls her legacy heritage project? The play, the central character, Shakespeare’s motives, will still divide opinion, and new horrors will always inform them, but what Oberman and Larmour highlight is how unlikeable everyone is in The Merchant Of Venice. Until that unifying coda, but when will such a coda head over the horizon? Not any time soon.

Watford Palace Theatre in The Merchant Of Venice 1936, York Theatre Royal, until Saturday, 7.30pm nightly plus Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

 

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EastEnders star Tracy-Ann Oberman plays Shylock in Fascist East End version of The Merchant Of Venice at York Theatre Royal

Tracy-Ann Oberman’s Shylock in The Merchant Of Venice 1936, on tour at York Theatre Royal . Picture: Mark Senior

EASTENDERS, Doctor Who and Friday Night Dinner star Tracy-Ann Oberman will play Shylock in a ground-breaking version of Shakespeare’s The Merchant Of Venice on tour at York Theatre Royal from November 14 to 18.

Developed in association with HOME Manchester and with support from the Royal Shakespeare Company, The Merchant Of Venice 1936 has been adapted and directed by Brigid Larmour from an idea by co-creator Oberman.

Their thought-provoking and timely reimagining relocates the action to an electrifying new setting: London in 1936. 

“It has a been a lifelong dream of mine to bring this play to the stage in a new way, reimagining Shylock as one of the tough, no-nonsense Jewish matriarchs I grew up around in Brent,” says London-born actress, playwright and narrator Oberman, 57, as she “takes this important, sharp, sexy and heartfelt production around the country”.

“I’m delighted this project is finally happening and look forward to sparking debate and enlightening people about a pivotal but largely forgotten part of British history – just how close the establishment were to Oswald Mosley and his British Union of Fascists.”

In Watford Palace Theatre’s touring production, the capital city is on the brink of political unrest, fascism is sweeping across Europe and Mosley’s fascists are threatening a paramilitary march through the Jewish East End. Strong-willed single mother Shylock, Shakespeare’s anti-hero, runs a pawnbroking business from her house in Cable Street, where Mosley will march.

The poster for Watford Palace Theatre’s touring production of The Merchant Of Venice, starring Tracy-Ann Oberman as Shylock

When charismatic, anti-Semitic aristocrat Antonio comes to her for a loan, a high-stakes deal is struck. Will Shylock take her revenge? Who will pay the ultimate price?

“The women in my family were as tough as nails,” says Tracy-Ann, recalling her great-grandmother and aunts, women with nicknames such as Machine-Gun Molly and Sarah Portugal, who arrived in London from anti-Semitic eastern Europe at the turn of the last century to build a life and make a living against the odds.

Oberman’s family history helped her to unlock Shakespeare’s most controversial play. Her relatives survived the Battle of Cable Street in London’s East End in 1936, when the Jewish community was targeted by Mosley’s Blackshirts, only to be confounded when the non-Jewish community stood by their Jewish neighbours.

In The Merchant Of Venice 1936, Oswald Mosley inspires Antonio (Raymond Coulthard), the sneering merchant who takes a loan from Shylock, while heiress Portia (Hannah Morrish) becomes “a beautiful glacial Mitford type – awful”, whose “quality of mercy” courtroom speech bears the mark of hypocrisy, not humanity.  

Oberman’s single mother Shylock is fiercely committed, both to her independence and to her daughter. “I have one daughter,” she says. “It’s an intense relationship!”

The Merchant Of Venice had always fascinated and repulsed her, and this production duly sat in her head for years as she researched, planned and waited for lockdowns to pass.

Tracy-Ann Oberman’s Shylock: “A woman backed into a corner by all these men, with the palpable hatred and misogyny”. Picture: Mark Senior

Now that her female Shylock has come face to face with audiences at last, she says: “The thing that surprised me most was the court case. Just how powerful it was to see this woman backed into a corner by all these men, with the palpable hatred and misogyny. It was electric. You could cut the atmosphere in the auditorium with a knife. That was a revelation.”

Playing Shylock as a woman does not soften the character, emphasises Oberman. “I didn’t want to make her a victim or change her role in the story,” she says, before adding: “Maybe I underestimated the impact of a female Shylock. There are a couple of very shocking moments that really upset audiences.

“In an early scene, Antonio comes to borrow money, and Shylock describes him spitting on her and kicking her like a dog. When that behaviour is directed at a woman, it heightens the anti-Semitism.

“I think people also see a woman with her rage and anger. She loses her daughter, her money – she loses everything. And when you tell somebody that they’re a monster for long enough, they become that monster.”

The play speaks as much to the present as of the past. “At a time when we are looking at Britain’s involvement in colonialism and the slave trade, I think we also have to look at Britain’s flirtation with fascism,” says Tracy-Ann.

“Oswald Mosley and King Edward VIII, both great friends of Hitler, came close to power – we dodged a bullet. The great message of the play is about the pulling together of all communities. We’re better together, we’re stronger together, especially at times of huge financial and political insecurity. The past shows us what happens when we look inwards: we become very nationalistic and try to pit minorities against each other. We have to be vigilant.”

“We’re better together, we’re stronger together, especially at times of huge financial and political insecurity,” says Tracy-Ann Oberman as she tours the country in The Merchant Of Venice 1936. Picture: Mark Senior

Oberman dreams of the Battle of Cable Street being taught as part of the British civil rights movement. “Mosley had been sending his Blackshirts down into Cable Street, smashing doors, breaking windows, attacking synagogues and people on the streets, putting up the most horrific leaflets straight out of Hitler’s playbook,” she says,

“But my great grandmother always reminded me that their neighbours – their Irish neighbours, the Afro-Caribbean community, the dockers, the working classes – all stood together. That was a beautiful moment.”

Oberman acknowledges how personal this project is to her but audience reactions testify to common ground. “What has been very moving is how many people want to stay and talk at the end,” she says.

“A lot of people talk about their own family’s immigrant experience. Young political people want to talk about the Battle of Cable Street, and people who’d never seen a Shakespeare play about why they’d found it so accessible.

“One man came in with about 20 fascist newspapers from the 1930s that he’d found in his father’s loft, which we’ve used as part of our graphics. There were big conversations: is the play anti-Semitic? Was Shakespeare? Lots of really interesting conversations.”

One factor behind Oberman’s wish to stage The Merchant of Venice 1936 was teachers telling her of their anxiety over discussing this contentious play in their classrooms. This has led to the touring production being accompanied by educational work, mounted in tandem with the activist group Stand Up To Racism.

“At a time when we are looking at Britain’s involvement in colonialism and the slave trade, we also have to look at Britain’s flirtation with fascim,” says Tracy-Ann Oberman

The education team has not only visited schools and prepared a pack to support teachers, but “we’ve also created an online world which people can look at before or after seeing the play,” says Tracy-Ann. “It’s an incredible resource talking about the play, the 1930s, the history of anti-Semitism and racism, Oswald Mosley, everything you could want.”

After a diverse career on stage, taking in the RSC and National Theatre, iconic soap status as Dirty Den’s nemesis, Chrissie Watts, in EastEnders and TV comedy roles as Auntie Val in Friday Night Dinner and Mrs Purchase in Toast Of London, Oberman stands centre stage as the distaff Shylock.

“I can honestly say that when I went into this, it was never with an ego about playing Shylock, it was about wanting to tell the story. I just put my soul into it,” she says. “Every single bit of it has been a complete joy. It’s been more than a piece of theatre – for me, it’s been a mission. And it’s lived up to all my expectations.”

Audience tears and standing ovations have greeted The Merchant Of Venice 1936. “While they might not have liked my Shylock, they certainly understood why she wants that ‘pound of flesh’,” says Tracy-Ann.

“She stands in the courtroom with her handbag, with everything stacked against her. A lot of people know that feeling, believing the law is on their side, but discovering it’s only on the side of people that have power.”

The Merchant Of Venice 1936, York Theatre Royal, November 14 to 18; 7.30pm; 2pm, Thursday, 2.30pm, Saturday. Box office: 01904 623568 or at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

Copyright of The Press, York

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Daniel Connelly launches new York Shakespeare Project era with Richard III in warring 21st century House of Commons

Harry Summers’s smiling assassin Richard III with Rosy Rowley’s Duke of Buckingham in rehearsal for York Shakespeare Project’s Richard III. Picture: John Saunders

THE first production of York Shakespeare Project’s second cycle of Shakespeare plays opens on Wednesday, directed by York newcomer Dr Daniel Roy Connelly.

As when YSP began its 20-year mission to present all the Bard’s works with John White’s Elizabethan production of Richard III at the Joseph Rowntree Theatre in 2002, so “the York play” will be the opening act of a 25-year new project, this time at Friargate Theatre, Lower Friargate, York as part of the York International Shakespeare Festival.

Dr Connelly, newly moved to the city, is at the helm, having acted and directed in places as diverse as Rome, the United States, the Edinburgh Festival and Shanghai, where his 2009 production of David Henry Hwang’s M Butterfly was forced to close by the Chinese secret police.

This is but one highlight from the diverse career of the former British diplomat (or “Foreign Office office boy” as he calls himself on his podcast). Step forward: theatre director. Actor. Poet. Author. Professor. Teacher. Prospective parliamentary candidate. That all adds up to a polymath.

Now, leading off YSP’s new era of staging Shakespeare’s First Folio and plays by his contemporaries, Dr Connelly is taking on “Shakespeare’s astonishing depiction of Richard III as both physically and mentally deformed, and, as a result, inherently evil”.

His modern-day makeover is set in a frenetic, calculating and brutal 21st century Westminster with its endless Machiavellian bloodletting and daily treacheries. In his contemporary vision, Richard and Buckingham excel as social-media manipulators within a world of warring political parties. “In the shadowy corridors of power, everyone is culpable,” he says.

While on the subject of politics, Dr Connelly will be the prospective parliamentary candidate for the True & Fair Party for York Outer at the next General Election.

To catch a flavour of his philosophy on life, head to The Anarchist Monastery, the podcast he co-presents with Hugh Bernays, the York artist and craftsman who believes “it is better to work under-cover”, although he does surface to do a weekly show.

Here Dr Connelly discusses Richard III, the play, the rotten reputation and relationship with York, York Shakespeare Project, York International Shakespeare Festival, diplomacy, 21st century politics and podcasting with CharlesHutchPress.

“The best remedy would be for the pro-Richard camp to write the play they believe Richard deserves,” says Dr Daniel Roy Connelly in the face of York’s antipathy to Shakespeare’s play

What brought you to York after such an itinerant career, Daniel?

“My son moved here from Rome four years ago. I miss him enormously and it was time to pack up and follow him substantively. And what a beautiful city to find myself in…”

Why did Shakespeare give Richard such a sour portrait when York and the Richard III Society view him much more favourably and therefore feel antipathy towards the Bard’s characterisation? 

“Thirty years after Richard’s death, Sir Thomas More, the Tudor statesman and Henry VIII’s Lord Chancellor, described Richard as ‘malicious, wrathfull, envious, and from afore his birth, ever frowarde’.  He was also ‘close and secrete, a deepe dissimuler’. Hardly a glowing reference.

“Elizabeth I – the last of the Tudors – was the granddaughter of Henry VII, who vanquished Richard at Bosworth Field. Politically, Richard’s characterisation had for long been warped and Shakespeare wrote in line with the various 16th-century mythologies.

“His portrait of Richard III may not serve the interests of history, but then that’s hardly the concern of a master storyteller on the stage. So, while I have some sympathy for the Ricardians and the people of York over Shakespeare’s unsubtle appropriation of Richard’s character, drama loves conflict and the best dramatists, put simply, make stuff up to enable it.

“The best remedy, then, would be for the pro-Richard camp to write the play they believe Richard deserves.”

As a former diplomat yourself, how do you think Shakespeare’s Richard III would have fared in the diplomatic services. Would his skill set be suitable or unsuitable?

“It’s said that a diplomat is a person who can tell you to go to hell in such a way that you actually look forward to the trip. As such, and in the service of government, diplomacy is a career that upholds dissimulation.

“In Shakespeare’s Richard we see a master of guile, no more so than when he speaks of clothing his naked villainy in order to ‘seem a saint, when most I play the devil’. ‘Why, I can smile, and murder whiles I smile,’ he says in the immediately prior play Henry VI, Part 3. With that kind of skill set, he’d be an absolute high-flyer in the Diplomatic Service.”

Dr Daniel Roy Connelly, right, rehearsing Richard III with his York Shakespeare Project cast. Picture John Saunders

What attracted you to working with York Shakespeare Project, as the outset of the 25-year phase two?

“The opportunity to re-boot YSP’s cycle of the canon was very attractive to me. I’m someone who always wants to go either first or last, to set the bar high or to leave everyone with something to go home with.

“YSP have been very supportive of my attempts to bring a contemporary Richard to the stage – I have a stellar cast and crew – and as far as I’m concerned, it’s a partnership that has worked very well. I have nothing but enthusiasm for YSP’s commitment to producing Shakespeare’s remarkable output.”

Discuss how Laurence Olivier and Ian McKellen’s screen portraits – 40 years apart – of Richard as “a petty, narcissistic and vengeful psychopath” have prompted you to stage a modern-day Richard III in the House of Commons to highlight parallels with the politics and politicians of today.

“If the above clutch of adjectives sounds familiar, we need look no further than contemporary British politics, which is why I have decided to set my version in our parliament.

“Telling Shakespeare’s Richard through what is comfortably the most corrupt institution in the country, the play – and I hope my interpretation of it – explores the cut and thrust of power’s crucible, with laws ignored and lies sown.

“I believe that a parliamentary production of Richard III is not only long overdue, it’s also bang on time. Prepare, then, for British politics as played out, murderously, on the floor of the house.”

This production forms part of the York International Shakespeare Festival, and you have experienced an international career as a diplomat and theatre director. What makes Shakespeare’s work so universal?

“I’ve seen Shakespeare performed across the globe in many cultures and languages. I’ve also taught his work in America, Europe and Asia. Actors and students well know there’s never been a storyteller like him.

“Shakespeare takes our humanity, creates recognisable conflict in recognisable people, which often – in tragedy at least – leads to dire consequences. He also shows us what love is and what love isn’t, hate too, and what loss means and how joy and comedy can elevate our lives. In doing so, he expands our understanding of what makes us human and offers us ready advice as to how we can survive such a troubling condition.

Miranda Mufema’s Lady Anne in rehearsal for Richard III. Picture: John Saunders

“In 2012, Shakespeare’s Globe in London produced 37 of Shakespeare’s plays in 37 languages, including Maori, Swahili, Pashto and Mandarin. A quick glance at Wikipedia reveals 140 Shakespeare festivals in the United States alone. It’s hard to argue against that kind of reach and durability. He’s doing something right for sure.”

What are the tenets of the True and Fair Party, for whom you are the prospective parliamentary candidate for York Outer?

“There’s no point in continuing to drink from the well if the water is poisoned. Essentially, Gina Miller’s True & Fair Party came into being to clean up the UK’s polluted politics and to propel national governance into the 21st century, with more accountability, openness, and a focus on a kinder, more empathic way of doing business.

“The party also has a broad swath of unique and compelling manifesto commitments, such as introducing legally binding contracts for MPs, switching to the proportional representation the country is crying out for, or banning the sale of alcohol on the parliamentary estate.

“But first and foremost, the party is committed to disinfecting our country’s political slurries and to showing the electorate that not all politicians are in it for themselves; that there is desire and energy for meaningful change.

“These are the tenets that drew me to True & Fair, and so I’d like to show the voters of York Outer that a better, more compassionate and caring way is possible.”

Find out more at: https://www.trueandfairparty.uk/daniel-roy-connelly

What topics do you discuss with Hugh Bernays in a typical episode of your made-in-York weekly podcast The Anarchist Monastery?

“Hugh and I have just started our podcasting journey in a place we call The Anarchist Monastery, where we have a weekly discussion of our lives here in York – both of us as outsiders, one long-standing and one newbie.

“We also chat about my many global travels, our mental health and our lives as lovers of history, theatre and literature. All in all, it’s an interrogation of wayfaring. We’re learning all the time about what’s needed to make a successful podcast and we’re having a blast doing it.”

York Shakespeare Project in Richard III, Friargate Theatre, Lower Friargate, York, Wednesday to Saturday, April 26 to 29, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Saturday matinee. Box office: Box office: ticketsource.co.uk/ridinglights.

Introducing: The Anarchist Monastery podcast

Dr Daniel Roy Connelly: “Ascertaining who we are and how we got here” in his podcast with Hugh Bernays

THE Anarchist Monastery is not so much a building, more a state of mind, one shared by craftsman and resident Hugh Bernays and Dr Daniel Roy Connelly, a visitor, teacher, theatre director and author.

From the 2000-year-old-city of York, Hugh and Daniel interrogate each another to try to ascertain who we are and how we got here, probing little known histories of this beautiful city in search of where ‘here’ really is.

“If you’re the kind of person who values the use of the imagination and likes to take the road less travelled in coming to an understanding of the world, The Anarchist Monastery is the podcast for you. Don’t be late – join the siblinghood,” they say.

Available on all major podcast platforms. Head to: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-anarchist-monastery/id1680351791

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Last chance to see beside the sea: The Comedy Of Errors (More Or Less), Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough *****

Andy Cryer’s slimy Solinus in The Comedy Of Errors (More Or Less) at the SJT, Scarborough. Picture: Patch Dolan

REVIEW: Stephen Joseph Theatre and Shakespeare North Playhouse in The Comedy Of Errors (More Or Less), Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, 7.30pm tonight; 2.30pm and 7.30pm, Saturday. Box office: 01723 370541 or sjt.uk.com

THIS Comedy Of Errors gets everything right. Not more or less. Just right. Full stop.

Shakespeare’s “most bonkers farce” has been entrusted to Nick Lane, madly inventive writer of the SJT’s equally bonkers pantomime, and Elizabeth Godber, a blossoming writing talent from the East Yorkshire theatrical family.  

How does this new partnership work? In a nutshell, Lane has penned the men’s lines, Godber, the female ones, before the duo moulded the finale in tandem.

SJT artistic director Paul Robinson, meanwhile, selected a criminally good play list of Eighties’ guilty pleasures, from Whitesnake’s Here I Go Again to Billy Joel’s Uptown Girl, Nik Kershaw’s Wouldn’t It Be Good to Toni Basil’s Mickey, Cher’s Just Like Jesse James to Kenny Loggins’ Footloose, to be sung in character or as an ensemble with Northern Chorus oomph.

Aptly, the opening number is an ensemble rendition of Dream Academy’s one-hit wonder, Life In A Northern Town, that town being 1980s’ Scarborough, just as Lane always roots his pantomimes in the Yorkshire resort.

From an original idea by Robinson, Lane and Godber’s reinvention of Shakespeare’s comedy is not too far-fetched but far enough removed to take on its own personality and, frankly, be much, much funnier as a result. To the point where one woman in the front row was in the grip of a fit of giggles. Yes, that joyous.

For Ephesus, a city on the Ionian coast with a busy port, read Scarborough, a town on the Yorkshire coast with a fishing harbour, although all the fish and chip cafés were shut without explanation on the evening of the press night. Was something fishy going on?

Ephesus was governed by Duke Solinus; Scarborough is run by Andy Cryer’s vainglorious Solinus. Still the merry-go-round action is spun around mainly outdoor public spaces on Jessica Curtis’s set, where protagonists bump into each other like dodgem cars. Just as Syracusans were subject to strict rules in the original play, now Lancastrians are given the Yorkshire cold shoulder in a new war of the roses, besmirched Eccles Cakes et al.

Sing when you’re twinning: David Kirkbride’s Antipholus of Scarborough and Oliver Mawdsley’s Dromio of Prescot in the SJT’s highly musical The Comedy Of Errors (More Or Less). Picture: Patch Dolan

So begins a tale of two rival states and two sets of mismatched twins (Antipholus and Dromio times two) on one nutty day at the seaside. Cue a mishmash of mistaken identities, mayhem agogo, and merriment to the manic max, conducted at an ever more frenetic lick.

It worked wonders for Richard Bean in One Man, Two Guvnors, his Swinging Sixties’ revamp of Goldoni’s 1743 Italian Commedia dell’arte farce, The Servant Of Two Masters, setting his gloriously chaotic caper, as chance would have it, in another English resort: Brighton. Now The Comedy Of Errors evens up the mathematical equation for two plus two to equal comedy nirvana from so much division.

One ‘guvnor’, Lancastrian comic actor Antipholus of Prescot (Peter Kirkbride) crosses the Pennine divide to perform his one-man show. Trouble is, everyone has booked tickets for the talent show across the bay, starring t’other ‘guvnor’, the twin brother he has never met, Antipholus of Scarborough (David Kirkbride, different first name, but same actor, giving licence for amusing parallel biographies in the programme).

The two ‘servants’ of the piece, Dromio of Prescot and Scarborough respectively (Oliver/Zach  Mawdsley), are equally unaware of the other’s presence, compounding a trail of confusion rooted in Scarborough’s Antipholus owing money everywhere but still promising his wife a gold chain. He needs to win the contest to appease Scarborough’s more unsavoury sorts.

Kirkbride takes the acting honours in his hyperactive double act with himself, Mawdsley a deux  is a picture of perplexity; Cryer, in his 40th year of SJT productions, is comedy gold as ever in chameleon roles; likewise, Claire Eden fills the stage with diverse riotous, no-nonsense character, whether from Lancashire or Yorkshire.

Valerie Antwi, Alyce Liburd and Ida Regan, each required to put up with the maelstrom of male malarkey, add so much to the comedic commotion, on song throughout too.

Under Robinson’s zesty, witty direction, everything in Scarborough must be all at sea and yet somehow emerge as comic plain sailing, breaking down theatre’s fourth wall to forewarn with a knowing wink of the need to suspend disbelief when seeing how the company will play the two sets of twins once, spoiler alert, they finally meet.

Who knew shaken-and-stirred Shakespeare could be this much fun, enjoying life in the fast Lane with Godber gumption galore too. Add the Yorkshire-Lancashire spat and those Eighties’ pop bangers, Wayne Parsons’ choreography and the fabulous costumes, and this is the best Bard comedy bar none since Joyce Branagh’s Jazz Age Twelfth Night for Shakespeare’s Rose Theatre in York in 2019.

When The Comedy Of Errors meets the 1980s, the laughs are even bigger than the shoulder pads. A case of more, not less.

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EastEnders star Tracy-Ann Oberman to play Shylock in Fascist-era The Merchant Of Venice 1936 at York Theatre Royal

Tracy-Ann Oberman: From EastEnders to Shylock in The Merchant Of Venice set in London’s East End in 1936

WATFORD Palace Theatre’s ground-breaking new production of Shakespeare’s The Merchant Of Venice will visit York Theatre Royal on tour from November 14 to 18.

Tracy-Ann Oberman, from EastEnders, Doctor Who and Friday Night Dinner, will play Shylock on an autumn itinerary that will open at the Royal Shakespeare Company’s Swan Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon, from September 21 to October 7.

Developed in association with HOME Manchester and with support from the RSC, The Merchant Of Venice 1936 is adapted and directed by Brigid Larmour from an idea by co-creator Oberman. Their thought-provoking and timely reimagining relocates the action to an electrifying new setting: London in 1936. 

The capital city is on the brink of political unrest, fascism is sweeping across Europe and Oswald Mosley’s British Union of Fascists is threatening a paramilitary march through the Jewish East End. Strong-willed single mother Shylock runs a pawnbroking business from her house in Cable Street, where Mosley will march.

When charismatic, anti-Semitic aristocrat Antonio comes to her for a loan, a high-stakes deal is struck. Will Shylock take her revenge? Who will pay the ultimate price?

“I look forward to sparking debate and enlightening people about a pivotal but largely forgotten part of British history,” says actress Tracy-Ann Oberman

“It has a been a lifelong dream of mine to bring this play to the stage in a new way, reimagining Shylock as one of the tough, no-nonsense Jewish matriarchs I grew up around in Brent,” says London-born actress, playwright and narrator Oberman, 56.

“I’m delighted this project is finally happening and look forward to sparking debate and enlightening people about a pivotal but largely forgotten part of British history – just how close the establishment were to Oswald Mosley and his British Union Of Fascists. I cannot wait to take this important, sharp, sexy and heartfelt production to theatres around the country.”

Oberman played Chrissie Watts in the BBC One soap opera EastEnders from 2004 to 2005; Yvonne Hartman in a two-part Doctor Who story, Army Of Ghosts/Doomsday, and Valerie Lewis or “Auntie Val” in the Channel 4 sitcom Friday Night Dinner from 2011 to 2020.

Larmour’s production will open at Watford Palace Theatre on February 27 before transferring to HOME Manchester from March 15. Joining her in the production team will be costume and set designer Liz Cooke, lighting designer Rory Beaton, sound design Sarah Weltman and composer Erran Baron Cohen (yes, actor/comedian Sacha’s older brother). 

Trafalgar Theatre Productions and Eilene Davidson Productions are producing the tour in association with the RSC, HOME Manchester and Watford Palace Theatre.

Tickets for the York run can be booked on 01904 623568 or at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.