Sarah Crompton speaks to Michael Grandage about the popularity of a man who has been dead since 1616 and was once consigned to dusty textbooks.
“Are we living through a golden age of Shakespeare?” I ask Michael Grandage. He laughs. “I don’t know about that, but it is definitely true that he is as popular at the moment as he probably ever has been in my directing career.”
It was Grandage who prompted the question in the first place. His production of Henry V, starring Jude Law, has opened to ecstatic reviews. This, the first commercially produced version of this play to appear in the West End since a long forgotten one starring Ivor Novello in the Thirties, will soon be joined in London by Coriolanus at the Donmar starring Tom Hiddleston, and a transfer of the RSC’s Richard II with David Tennant in the title role. By January, you will be able to add to that list Simon Russell Beale as King Lear at the National, directed by Sam Mendes.
Over the Atlantic, there is more Shakespeare currently playing on and off Broadway than at any time in living memory, spearheaded by the Globe Theatre’s productions of Twelth Night and Richard III.
It is a heck of a lot of activity for a man who has been dead since 1616 and was once consigned to dusty textbooks - and it is a trend that I am not sure anyone would have predicted even in the Nineties when Shakespeare was performed regularly and well, but without generating the same enthusiasm.
“Are we living through a golden age of Shakespeare?” I ask Michael Grandage. He laughs. “I don’t know about that, but it is definitely true that he is as popular at the moment as he probably ever has been in my directing career.”
It was Grandage who prompted the question in the first place. His production of Henry V, starring Jude Law, has opened to ecstatic reviews. This, the first commercially produced version of this play to appear in the West End since a long forgotten one starring Ivor Novello in the Thirties, will soon be joined in London by Coriolanus at the Donmar starring Tom Hiddleston, and a transfer of the RSC’s Richard II with David Tennant in the title role. By January, you will be able to add to that list Simon Russell Beale as King Lear at the National, directed by Sam Mendes.
Over the Atlantic, there is more Shakespeare currently playing on and off Broadway than at any time in living memory, spearheaded by the Globe Theatre’s productions of Twelth Night and Richard III.
It is a heck of a lot of activity for a man who has been dead since 1616 and was once consigned to dusty textbooks - and it is a trend that I am not sure anyone would have predicted even in the Nineties when Shakespeare was performed regularly and well, but without generating the same enthusiasm.