★★★★★ What a difference the sun makes! Although the downpours of last year’s inaugural Downs Festival failed to dampen the enthusiasm of a crowd determined to enjoy a culminating set from Massive Attack, this year’s vibe felt almost beach-like – with warm rays beaming down on a happy 27,000 sell-out crowd.
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★★★★★ Occasionally, when all the elements that go into making theatre come together successfully, there can be alchemy, an enchantment that lifts a production to a level where it not only delivers delightful story telling, but also elicits a deeply emotional response from an audience. In a production that has been beautifully and lovingly crafted, these ‘flying lovers’ will live on in your memory for a long time to come.
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★★★★★ The play is set in the artist, Lucian Freud’s, studio. At one point he refers to his great grandfather as being ‘the elephant in the room’, but for us in the audience that role is taken by the invisible, naked sitter, his interlocutor who he cajoles, bullies, charms, threatens and seduces to his will . . . Mr Goodman has produced an exceptional, complete, varied and nuanced performance that is the match for any artistic endeavour in any medium.
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★★★★★ If you are trying to recall all thirty-eight of the plays, don’t. This minor miracle is not amongst them. It’s Gregory Doran’s adaption of Shakespeare’s beautiful, comic and tragic narrative poem, a work which tells you everything you ever wanted to know about romantic love.
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★★★★☆ Watermill’s rendition is steeped in a jazz era aesthetic. It’s a very canny way of treating the play, where Malvolio’s puritanism is channelled through Prohibition-era context, Sir Toby is a veteran of the speak-easy, and Duke Orsino’s court is a lavish jazz club.
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