Shakespeare Magazine 04

Shakespeare in London
Kill list: Martin Freeman’s Richard is
a psychopathic military bureaucrat.
“A veteran actress sniped at
Freeman’s popularity,
referring to the production
as Richard the rock concert”
demand show of all time. The Sherlock star’s
2015 run of Hamlet at the Barbican has sold
out, but as with the Trafalgar Transformed
Richard III and other hot tickets of recent
years, eminently affordable £10 and £15
tickets may be made available at a later date,
thereby encouraging first time theatre goers
even further.
Players well bestow’d
A short stroll from the Barbican, through St
Paul’s and across the Millennium Bridge, is
Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre, where Lipman’s
comments about cheering at the correct time
would surely be laughed at.
This summer’s revival of Lucy Bailey’s
Titus Andronicus saw droves of fainters,
blood-spattered groundlings and audiences
being ordered to “MOVE” by intimidating
performers. And the Globe isn’t an eccentric
exception to stuffy Victorian-style theatre
etiquette. Even if we only look at a fraction
of this year’s output, London is bursting
with innovative and immersive Shakespeare
productions.
In Poplar, in London’s East End, an
ambitious production of Macbeth by
RIFT spans 12 hours and several floors of a
decaying tower block. Iris Theatre’s Richard
SHAKESPEARE magazine 9