BRUSH UP YOUR SHAKESPEARE: CYMBELINE, Arts Theatre, October 12 2009

Tonight I struck the first of my sixteen Shakespeares to see from my list. There is much to like in the National Youth Theatre's Cymbeline at the Arts. Those unfamiliar with this work, as was I largely was (of course I know Fear No More... I mean Sondheim wrote a setting), will find a telling here which is clear and fast-paced.

The cast are often very good and likeable to a man. Rosie Sansom easily captures Imogen's humanity, whilst Luke McEwan is confident and commands attention in the title role. Best of all though is Ned Derrington's Pisario. This is a young actor with more than considerable promise and I fully expect to see him join our national companies soon. Will Edelston's Cloten is fine when primping and preening, but he appeared to be performing to his friends in the audience and on more than one occasion I felt he would be well served to learn that less is more.

But then that is a problem with Brendan O'Hea's production which seems like a rehash of Marianne Elliot's excellent All's Well That Ends Well at the National Theatre. Indeed O'Hea appeared in it and his designer, Sam Wyer, also worked on that production. There is an over-reliance on technical effects. In All's Well on the huge Olivier stage this seemed magical, here it is over the top and regularly scuppers storytelling; why exactly do we need voice-overs and lip synching; what do all those projections add?

The humour too is massively over-egged. Cymbeline isn't a comedy, it is a romance - yes, it has an all too neat ending, as with Shakespeare's other spins on fairytales, but this does not mean it is comic. George Bernard Shaw complained about the play as 'vulgar, foolish, offensive, indecent, and exasperating beyond all tolerance', but even he had the decency to suggest to Ellen Terry when playing Imogen that she 'leave the paragon out and the woman in.' In other words make it human. What makes Shakespeare interesting is his utter humanity and I felt here this was often overlooked for a cheap laugh.