There’s nothing I like more than a decent British summer to get Sheffielders out in crumpled shorts and making the most of our fabulous parks and gardens for every genre of cultural activity under the sun. Summer is here and we’ve still got Art in the Gardens, Art Walks, Weston Park’s Victorian bandstand concerts and the Sheffield Fayre to look forward to. When Sheffield sees a ray of sunshine, it’s one big cultural fiesta.
Walk past the glorious curves and furrows of exotic glasshouses at Sheffield Botanical Gardens and you’ll find a leafy stage for everything from Cuban music to local art. Last night I took my picnic along to a theatrical evening of Love in Shakespeare.
Set in a make-believe pub called the Shakespeare Arms, an open mic night is the device used to knit together a spoof of the bard’s best bits. Romeo spies Juliette at yonder window, or rather standing on a bar stool. Two chavs, one in a baseball cap, the other in a silver, spandex top, are Hermia and Lysander from A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Even the grumpy pub landlord gets a gender transformation and a hair-band as he momentarily becomes Alice from Henry V.
Whether you’re a Shakespeare purist, or whether like me, you enjoy this original and witty take on his work, the one thing you realise is, the playwright who merged these famous romantic scenes set himself and the actors a serious challenge. Also the better you know your Shakespeare, the more you can peel back the layers of this complex interpretation. For instance, I was impressed by the three faceless mime artists, representing the duplicitous Iago and the voices of Othello’s insecurities.
A passion for sharing and contemporising Shakespeare was evident, even the event programme featured bar mats with questions to test your literary knowledge. The production was also garnished with dance and hilarious pop-song vignettes. This was certainly a bold, twenty-first century portrayal of affairs of the heart, and succeeded in showing us that ole Shakey is as relevant today as he was 400 year’s ago.
For all our friends in the north and west, Heartbreak Productions is bringing Love in Shakespeare to Mount Grace Priory in Northallerton on 22 July, and Woolley Hall in Wakefield on 13 August. But, if you’re not convinced by this new-fangled take on our great writer’s work, you can still join in the Sheffield Botanical Garden’s cultural fiesta. Macbeth, Much Ado About Nothing, The Secret Garden and Art in the Gardens, are all yet to come.
I share Lucy’s appreciation of Love in Shakespeare having myself seen a performance in the wonderful setting of The Botanical Gardens in Sheffield.
For myself a first sign of summer is Heartbreak’s Banner at the entrance to The Botanical Gardens advertising their upcoming productions there and it is a great location to see theatre
This is small scale open air theatre at its best. There is something quite endearing being shown to your seat and then have someone sell you a programme only to find these people take to the stage a little time later to take their place in the cast!!!
Oft times open air productions can be peformances of the “Midsummer Importance of Being Earnest Night’s Dream” accessable Shakespeare or Oscar Wilde and so it was quite refreshing to see an original production – even one that is a homage to the bard
I too therefore would recommend to see this production while it tours our region