As an audience we of course come to any production of Shakespeare with the sensibilities of our own time. Bertie Carvel’s King of Bohemia is a man we recognise as having serious mental issues, being as it is said, ‘In rebellion with himself’. The mental turmoil is given physical expression in his bent and twisted contortions, as if some malign entity were sticking pins into his miniature effigy. How a leader consumed by an imaginary reality, not dissimilar to that of a conspiracy theorist, can expose a society to executive excess is a condition with which the world is currently only too familiar.

A Women in Love style wrestling match between Leontes and supposed bosom chum Polixenes (John Light) is anything but back slapping jollity and is all the trigger required for Leontes’ outburst of jealous rage. Director, Yaël Farber allows him to go full throttle in his rantings.  By having all other characters on a darkened stage as the writhing scenes of his fevered imagination are playing out in his head, we see Othello’s, ‘Goats and monkeys!’, in lurid detail. And yet no sooner has the Oracle spoken in Hermione’s defence than he falls, exhausted and deflated only to be covered in snow (Or was it volcanic ash – the play has us chasing metaphors?).  

One striking directorial decision that seemed to develop the trope is in having Hermione (Madeline Appiah) wearing a bear mask for the notorious stage direction, ‘Exit pursued by a bear’, but quite how that explains the fate of Antigonus (Matthew Flynn) wasn’t clear.

Bohemia gives us Perdita (Leah Haile) as a child of nature, joining in with the ecstatic dance of the Bohemian girls, free of the constraints that would have bound her at court. Of course Florizel is going to choose her over some painted court decoration.

This production is pared back; we might say bleak. Soutra Gilmour’s relentless grey costumes of the Sicilian courtiers does nothing to assuage the gloom at court. The giant globe that dominates the otherwise bare stage is in a permanent state of flux; now apparently the Moon, now Mars, now the Earth. I found myself wondering if planetary influence was somehow the culprit for bad vibes in Sicilia. Certainly when all the tears in the social fabric are mended and the whole cast turn to the Earth that feeling was reinforced.

Nonetheless I found myself still searching for a clear understanding of the play as conceived by Yaël Farber who did however manage to draw strong performances from Ms Appiah and the Paulina of Aïcha Kossoko. Trevor Fox was a time travelling Autolycus, sure-footed, clever and sharp.

The production is littered with gems yet leaves us in want of greater clarity.

★★★☆☆    Graham Wyles   23 July 2025