Shakespeare performances in England (and Wales), 2008

Summary

New Year's Day, 2008. Under a louring sky, Stratford-upon-Avon woke up to find (nine months after it officially closed) 'The Greatest Dramatist', 'The Essential Year', the RSC's 'Complete Works Festival' still somehow staggering on, not least in company press releases reluctant to kick the 'essential year's' addictive publicity habits. More bingeing was promised: a 'Once in a lifetime opportunity to see Shakespeare's complete History Cycle performed by one ensemble company of actors' (on the matter of the 'ensemble company', more anon). Reading that, some spectators may have felt a weary sense of déjà vu. Four of these eight histories had already been revived once, in 2006, recycled from original productions back in 2000, to pass muster as RSC Artistic Director Michael Boyd's contribution to the 'Complete Works Festival'. Now, just when these veteran campaigners might have been thought honourably discharged and demobbed, here they were again, hauled back into active service, re-rehearsed one more time, and shoved up the front line of the new year's offerings. (It was, by the way, the prospect of taking up this 'once in a lifetime opportunity' that finally killed off Survey's last reviewer - see Shakespeare Survey 61.) But what I chiefly remember of New Year's Day was taking a late morning walk on the south bank of the Avon to shake off the last of the hangover - and being instantly sobered up by the sight that hit me, a sight you couldn't see on the town side of the river, where it was hidden behind a long stretch of hoardings plastered with giant-sized full-colour blow-ups of recent RSC 'greats' (Harriet Walter as Cleopatra, Chuk Iwuji as Henry VI).