The Taming Of The Shrew

Published Wednesday 7 May 2008 at 16:15 by Richard Edmonds

This smart, roller coaster of a production, which bursts at the seams with inventive business, is certainly cut from a sharper pattern than the depressing modern dress Merchant of Venice which I endured recently.

Conall Morrison’s Shrew starts off in Moss Bros suits and moves swiftly into boozy clubbing and pubbing, but then you become aware of Morrison’s reasons - Christopher Sly is dragged kicking and screaming into toffdom by the strolling players who stage his story in Renaissance-type costumes and sets which appear from their company truck, who thus underline the thread of commedia dell’arte which gives the evening its verve.

The period switch from Moss Bros to ruffs and feathered caps is clever and is repeated at the climax of the play, when Katherine (the completely marvellous Michelle Gomez in Jimmy Choo-type shoes) gives poor Sly the brush-off and the van moves off, leaving him a sad and perhaps wiser man.

But no messages or morals are banged around our heads, this is an evening where a gag a minute and a hardworking totally gorgeous cast make for a show that sizzles from beginning to end, where the adventures of Katherine and Petruchio are set out in a sharper outline than I have seen for years.

The sheer exuberance of the production is continually sustained with beautifully wrought performances from a hard working cast which includes William Beck (as the much put upon Grumio,) and Keir Charles (as Tranio). Charles plays the character switch to his master Lucentio with lashings of camp swagger and was funny enough to make me reach for my inhaler. Stephen Boxer is a fierce Petruchio with a sadistic edge, but this is a production worth seeing for Katherine’s final speech, which Gomez plays with heart-rending capitulation, until you weep for her.

A production worth visiting a dozen times over.