Following the Olivier Award-nominated, ‘fantastically funny’ ★★★★★ (Broadway World) Midsummer Mechanicals, Shakespeare’s Globe and Splendid Productions present a brand-new family show, Rough Magic, in the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse this summer.
‘Round about the cauldron go;
In the magic creatures throw...’
Join us in the world of Shakespeare’s magical characters as Macbeth’s wonderfully wayward Weird Sisters cook up a supernaturally silly adventure of their own.
‘Witches' spells, ghosts galore,
Feisty fairies, monsters and more!’
The Globe’s Director of Education Lucy Cuthbertson (Playing Shakespeare with Deutsche Bank: Romeo and Juliet; Midsummer Mechanicals, Globe) and Splendid Productions’ Kerry Frampton and Ben Hales (Midsummer Mechanicals, Globe) join forces once again to bring you a magical summertime treat for all ages.
‘By the pricking of my thumbs, something SILLY this way comes…’
– Macbeth, Act IV, scene 1 (kind of...)
__Access performances__
Audio described - Wed 7 Aug 1.30pm
Relaxed - Fri 9 Aug 3pm & Wed 21 Aug 1.30pm
Captioned - Sat 10 Aug 3pm
BSL - Thu 15 Aug 1.30pm
If thorny issues of free will versus devilish equivocation or the convolutions of the multiple Shakespearean narratives begin to bamboozle the kids, Cuthbertson and Frampton can be relied upon to supply some supremely silly stage business to quell the fidgets. We help the witches to conjure their sleep and laughter charms; two self-regarding actors from the ghost department, dressed in fright wigs and all-white doublet-and-hose, flamboyantly teach us their scare tactics. Illusion designer John Bulleid ensures that candles mysteriously extinguish and players vanish into thin air, and a Shadow (Frampton again, this time a Scarlet Pimpernel figure with an outrageous French accent) demonstrates how to suspend a dagger in mid-air. Descriptions of the murders of Banquo and, in particular, of Macduff’s family, sit uneasily within the tomfoolery. Otherwise, this show holds its young sorcerers’ apprentices spellbound.
Lucy Cuthbertson’s production, with additional direction by Frampton, is warm-spirited and well-paced. The young audience particularly enjoy when any potentially boring bits are fast-fowarded by the actors. Plays that close by extolling the wonders of drama can end up irritating instead. But Rough Magic concludes with a moving reflection on the spirit in which we make our entrances and exits at the theatre, and the wizardry that binds us in between.
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