Taming of the Shrew, Shakespeare's Globe, 13th October 2012

Oof, I do love theatre. Next to linguistics, it is the light of my life. Compared to last summer, where I practically lived in London and overdosed on the stuff, this summer has been pitifully theatre-bare (pissing all your money away on an MA and then spending your summer writing a thesis for said MA kind of shoots any kind of recreational theatre horse right in the face*). However, I made sure to book for The Globe's closing weekend the day the tickets went on sale -- last night performances always have that something special about them, a kind of exuberant frenzy tinged with sadness from the cast and creatives, and in a theatre like The Globe, that's all the more electric.

Following a thoroughly excellent housewarming party at our new abode, I tore myself out of bed and just about managed a five-hour coach journey to London with a stonking hangover (remind me again why I continue to drink wine?), but was cured by the fresh yet biting October cold, the presence of Emma, and a little hair of the dog.

Classing it up with melon martinis

After a thorough deconstruction of the recent terrible life choices of Team Shameless, we wandered Globewards, queued for a time, and got a sweet spot thrust-left alongside Sophie, Jo, Jan, Rhian, and Rob, living proof that people you meet on the Internet are uniformly excellent.

Our first show of the weekend was The Taming of the Shrew. Though I know the text, I've never seen a production before and have heard that, pitched poorly, it can be DIRE, being one of the most problematic of Shakey's plays to transfer to a modern, enlightened audience. This production, however, overcame any and every issue with the text, resulting in a sparky, filthy, hilarious and gorgeous rendering of the play which left me giggling and delighted for the whole next day.

The onus of responsibility for pulling off a good Taming is going to rest on your leads, and Samantha Spiro and Simon Paisley-Day carried it brilliantly, fizzling with chemistry from their very first moment, and managing the tricky textual relationship between the lovers perfectly. Their Kate and Petruchio were swaggering, kinky and super hot for each other (without betraying their own integrity), and there something about a height difference that makes a Kate/Petruchio dymanic all the more delicious (see also: Rufus Sewell and Shirley Henderson in Shakespeare ReTold).

Height difference!

The 'taming' scenes, where Kate bends to Petruchio's will were played like a game, with Kate indulging her husband very knowingly - a fantastic way of interpreting the script. This Kate has always had to act up to get even the slightest bit of fair treatment, that's all she knows, and this Petruchio sees that and wants to change her for her, not his own gain. Fabulous.

(Also, Simon Paisley Day spends a goodly amount of this production in a thong-codpiece. Props to him for braving the cold, and for having some killer hipbones.)

The younger, flightier Bianca and Lucentio were adorably interpereted by Sarah MacRae and Joseph Timms; the former adding fantastic, calculated cruelness to the textually weak sister, and the latter being the most puppy-eyed, giddy-hearted sap you could hope to see. The entire supporting cast were faultless, adding tiny slivers of comedy to nearly every line and filling the stage with a cheeky exuberance which left you feeling scandalised - in a good way.

Even with such strong leads, two of the supporting roles were absolute scene-stealers. Tom Godwin's Biondello was brimming with rakish charm, twinkly-eyed asides and hilarious physical comedy. From miming the contents of a letter to book-carrying and wielding a sword, everything was executed hilariously and on-point. Jamie Beamish played a beaming (no pun intended), ridiculous Tranio whose exaggerated everything had us consistently in stitches - whenever he, Timms and Godwin shared a scene I swear my face hurt from grinning so hard.

This photo had to be embiggened, for facial expression reasons.

Special mention should also go to Pearce Quigly, whose lackadaisical, snarky Grumio was a thing of beauty, and who managed to make kicking a bucket the most spectacular joke of the night.

Throw into the mix some glorious music, typically gorgeous costuming and a beautifully tender ending and you're left with several hundred raucously cheering theatregoers. All in all, a tremendous stonker of a show with buckets of vibrancy and even more heart. The Globe at its best**.

*That metaphor kind of got away from me there.
**I do think The Globe owes me some recompense for the fact that I shall never be able to get the incredibly catchy Cuckoo's Nest song from my head, mind. However, if you've been standing for three hours watching a show, imitating supernumerary Robert Heard's brilliant 'Cuckoo's Nest Wiggle' is great for the spine.