The Winter's Tale

Oxford Playhouse

Tuesday 10th - Saturday 14th May

There's a rather paradoxical feeling with Shakespeare that summer is the time for a nice cheering comedy whilst the tragedies are best left for the dead of winter when we're all miserable anyway. With the rather uncertain onset of summer this year, it seems like the right time to huddle up for the evening with the boys from Propeller, and try to find something in between. Currently showing at the Oxford Playhouse, the all-male Shakespeare company's production of The Winter's Tale is worth the candle without a shadow of doubt.

By Shakespeare's standards, it's a fairly simple play in terms of plot, but every episode has something of the fable about it - demonic in Sicilia under the shadow of Leontes' jealous madness, idyllic in the pastoral pleasures of Bohemia - and the uneasily ethereal dimension this adds is where the play's appeal really begins. Under the sensitive direction of Edward Hall, Propeller have produced something of a variety show, which has us tense at the beginning, shaking with laughter in the middle and pretty darn tearful at the end.

I'm not sure of my general position on all-male Shakespeare - I'm sorry, it's almost always distracting - but Propeller manage to turn most aspects of this to their advantage. The rivalry between shepherdesses Mopsa and Dorcas takes on added comedic value as it turns into a rather suggestive scrap between hulking men in schoolgirl drag (I can't have been alone in thinking 'Little Britain' here), and Adam Levy's Paulina gains a rather awe-inspiring force in her masculinity, as well as a couple of laughs. Simon Scardifield gives a truly touching performance as Hermione, and though I wasn't too taken with Tam Williams' slightly wooden and lisping Perdita, this was a far cry from his vulnerable, pyjama'd Mamillius and engagingly puckish Time.

It's an interesting touch here that the women and the rustics are dressed more or less traditionally, in contrast to the sharp suits of Leontes and his entourage, giving the effect of a slightly dim-witted boys' club protecting their leader even in the face of his more preposterous delusions. Richard Clothier is brilliantly, thoroughly, irritating as the obsessed King of Sicilia, but you do feel for him as he gropes his way through the play whining with self-pity. Though I can't say it wasn't a welcome treat to see the old bastard get his comeuppance in the uncompromising interpretation of the final scene, I almost wished they'd thrown him some kind of lifeline.

If the imagery used isn't exactly consistent, this doesn't seem to detract from the broader effect; high comedy from James Tucker as the young shepherd and Tony Bell's frankly disturbing Autolycus offsets the darker aspects of the play, and a rather stern approach to Leontes' responsibility gives depth to the fairytale. This is a subtle, clever and entertaining production, received with delight by a pretty mixed audience. It comes highly recommended.

Susie Cogan, 11th May 2005