Review: 'Hip Hop Othello', Q Brothers, The Globe, May 6th 2012

Fully prepared for some cringey spectacle, (‘look kids, Shakespeare is COOL’). I was pleased to find that my fears for Q Brothers ‘Hip Hop Othello’ were wholly unjustified. The four performers bust out an Othello performed entirely in rap, delivering a production which, running at 90 minutes, is energetic, slick, and compact. The first intentionally funny production of Othello that I’ve seen (we won’t speak of the others), the success lies in the unashamed disclaimer that they’ve found out the ‘funny bits’, (is it just me or is everything somehow funnier in rhyme?). However, tragic content is equally confronted; the inspired decision to omit Desdemona’s onstage presence reinforces the fact that Othello’s fears and doubts fail to exist outside of his manipulated psyche. However gimmicky the concept appears, minimal props and uniform grey jumpsuits guarantee that the focus of this production is firmly on language and story. Fantastic, a company to watch. 5/5

Review: 'Macbeth', Teatr im. Kochanowskiego, The Globe, 8th May 2012

Teatr im. Kochanowskiego’s disclaimer ‘very adult content’, certainly doesn’t fail to disappoint; throat burning shots handed out by lascivious transvestites, King Duncan’s wrinkly birthday striptease and the unsettlingly realistic and bloody rape of Lady Macduff are just some of the attractions handed out in this ‘camp-tacular’ Macbeth.  One key criticism is Kleczewska’s decision to extend culpability of the murders to the witches, Ross and Lennox. The wider court’s complicity in the murders undermines the intense, claustrophobic and escalating depravity of the Macbeths’ relationship; the murders become not so much symptomatic of a couple’s sexualised pursuit for power but the collective actions of a ready-corrupted, shagging, powder sniffing court. Whilst the debauched cokey rave setting was a great choice, the group dynamic of the murders seemed to come at the cost of one of the most compelling elements of the play. Why not keep the character’s coked up and have them induced into paranoid, twitchy wrecks who are plagued with the suspicion that Big Mac’s started killing everyone? A solidly enjoyable production, but chaos took over from plot a little too often. 3/5