The Taming of the Shrew

Published Tuesday 6 June 2006 at 10:50 by Susan Elkin

You know this production, set in the 1940s, is going to be good from the moment you see the shabbily pretty Italianate set with its shutters and walkways. You are not disappointed as you settle down amongst the familiar bird calls and tree rustlings of Regents Park on a summer’s evening.

Sirine Saba’s “irksome brawling scold” is a plain, rather lumpy, unhappy misfit. It makes a lot of sense in the 21st century to rise above sexist laughter at her excesses to think about why she is ‘Katherine the Cursed’. Saba’s astonishing range of facial expressions make her Katerina into a fully rounded character. The towering John Hodgkinson - a splendidly accomplished verse speaker - creates a compelling, hard-drinking Petruchio. He too is deeply troubled. Yet there is charisma in the balance and in the end you can see why she falls in love with him.

Rachel Kavanaugh’s slick, pacey production wisely spares us the Christopher Sly frame because it detracts from what the play is trying to say about marriage, money and personal happiness. But that does not stop her exploiting every ounce of the play’s situational comedy. The diminutive Gerard Carey is a hilarious Welsh Grumio, for example. Sheridan Smith’s frivolous blonde Bianca, with her knowing looks behind other character’s backs is a good contrast with Katerina. James Wallace gives a good account of the sometimes pragmatic, but often ridiculous, Hortensio too.

The last scene with dancing to Terry Davies’s music is a tour de force. It looks beautiful and Saba’s famous final speech is warm, convincing and quietly sexy. You leave the theatre confident that that Petuchio and Katerina now have a “marriage of true minds” and sorry for anyone married to Billie-Claire Wright’s bossy, flashy widow or to the now-petulant Bianca.