The opening night of Love’s Labour’s Lost at the West Yorkshire Playhouse saw the audience grinning from its collective ear to ear in total delight at the show.
Rousing song and dance accompanied by pitch-perfect musical performances, wonderful comic timing, inspired choreography and some memorably hilarious scenes make this is a great show.
It was the first time I’d seen a Northern Broadsides production but I’d heard lots of great things about the company and after this I could see what all the fuss was about.
Directed by Barrie Rutter, the minimally adorned stage seemed always to have the right number of people, it never felt cluttered or overstaged. I felt less as if I was watching from the sidelines and more immersed in it than I have with many other shows that I have seen. It felt entirely credible.
It is one of Shakespeare’s lesser known and less performed plays, despite reportedly being one of his filthiest and certainly one of his funniest. The plot verges on the farcical and the brilliant actors play up to the daftness of it all perfectly.
The plot centres upon a solemn vow of celibacy taken by four male friends which is quickly put to the test on the arrival of four beautiful women. The men fall madly in love and with it take complete leave of their senses.
Tomfoolery, mistaken identity and plenty of jokes mainly at the men’s expense is dispensed in the witty banter and action that ensues.
Of course as is traditional with Shakespeare I spent a large part of the evening trying to work out exactly what was going on. This was quite rightly much to the enjoyment of my friend who had accompanied me and knew I’d have to attempt a sensible review for you discerning Culture Vulture folk.
“Well I’ll look forward to reading your piece then,” he said with the devilment of Shakespeare himself written all over his face. “Oh it’s fine”, I said feeling reasonably confident that my last year’s diet of serious bingeing on Leeds’ cultural scene should finally have left me brave enough to attempt a West Yorkshire Playhouse review.
“I’ll concentrate on the story,” I said, entirely forgetting that a good half of the plot had quite simply gone completely over my head. Because, whilst this is one of Shakespeare’s funniest plays, it is also reportedly one of his most dense. Tragically, a lot of his best dirty jokes were quite simply wasted on me. The loaded dialogue canters merrily along at Shakespeare’s signature iambic pentameter pace and there is a lot to take on. But then that is half the fun of Shakespeare isn’t it? Trying to work out exactly what has been said?
The fabulous thing about this production is that when your mind does wander there is plenty of fabulous stuff for it to wander onto. Whether it is the beautiful bright 1920s costuming, stylish enough to be whipped off Top Shop’s racks faster than you could say “To be or not to be”, or the sweet and alternately joyful musical performances on the flute and strings, or the general silliness of the show, you can return to the plot, safe in the knowledge that you are still in tune with the general drift and most importantly that you are still feeling completely entertained. There is just so much in this performance to engage you that you don’t have to understand every line.
Love’s Labour’s Lost is on at the West Yorkshire Playhouse until 14 April.
Tickets can be reserved by calling the box office on 0113 2137700 or by visiting www.wyp.org.uk