Dates: Opens 02 May 2013. In rep
26 May 2013 13:00 - Sign Interpreted
16 June 2013 13:00 - Audio Described
29 June 2013 14:00 - Open Captioned (STAGETEXT)

Prices: Please check with venue

Cast & Creative Team

Author: Shakespeare
Producer: The Globe Theatre
Director: Jeremy Herrin
Music: Stephen Warbeck
Design: Max Jones
Performer: Roger Allam (Prospero)
Performer: Jessie Buckley (Miranda)
Performer: Colin Morgan (Ariel)
Performer: Jason Baughan
Performer: Sam Cox
Performer: Pip Donaghy
Performer: Trevor Fox
Performer: James Garnon
Performer: Peter Hamilton-Dyer
Performer: Joshua James
Performer: William Mannering
Performer: Sarah Sweeney
Performer: Amanda Wilkin

Jessie Buckley & Roger Allam

Jeremy Herrin's production of The Tempest opened at Shakespeare's Globe last night (2 May 2013) with a cast including Roger Allam, Jessie Buckley and Colin Morgan.

One of Shakespeare’s last plays, The Tempest is set on a remote island where Prospero trains his powers of manipulation and magic. He summons a colossal storm in order to set his daughter, Miranda, back in her rightful position.

The Tempest is designed by Max Jones and runs at Shakespeare's Globe until 28 August 2013.

Maxwell Cooter
Whatsonstage.com
★★★

...Herrin's production is particularly strong on comedy; there can't be many productions of this play that produce so many laughs. Yet strangely, the comic scenes of Sam Cox's Stephano and Trevor Fox's Trinculo are rather flat. It doesn't start well - the opening scene is almost completely inaudible thanks to the thunder effects and the Globe's harsh acoustics… It's a curious mix: some excellent verse speaking, some fine comedy and an attractive young couple at the heart but the darker elements are missing entirely - it's a simplistic reading but one greatly appreciated by the Globe audience.

Henry Hitchings
Evening Standard
★★★

...Allam weighs every word exquisitely. He has the ability to make a line as simple as "Fairly spoke" vibrate with meaning - in this case allowing wryness to chafe against humanity. His performance is flecked with humour yet also with pathos… Jessie Buckley... brings passion to her role as Prospero’s daughter Miranda… What’s missing from director Jeremy Herrin’s interpretation is a sense of magic… While there are some seductive episodes, other scenes are colourless. This is a skilfully acted account of The Tempest, but not a spellbindingly beautiful one.

Charles Spencer
Daily Telegraph
★★★★

...Jeremy Herrin's production, with beautiful Jacobean costumes and genuinely enchanting music by Stephen Warbeck, captures all the wonder of this play about forgiveness, with its tough acknowledgment that it isn’t always possible to redeem the hardest of hearts – even with the help of magic… The great Roger Allam... is in equally fine form here… James Garnon is an outstanding, feral Caliban… Colin Morgan memorably captures Ariel’s mixture of the ethereal and the petulant… A production that memorably captures the humour, the enchantment and the tantalising sense of mystery of Shakespeare’s last masterpiece.

Caliban (James Garnon), Stephano (Sam Cox) & Trinculo (Trevor Fox). Photo: Marc Brenner

Michael Billington
Guardian
★★★★

...Roger Allam brings something new to the party by suggesting that Prospero is first and foremost a father… Jeremy Herrin's pleasing production avoids the temptation to turn the play into a spectacular island fling. Magic is created through simple means, such as a shower of petals descending from the sky or Stephen Warbeck's music emanating from every corner of the building… He gets good performances from Jessie Buckley and Joshua James as the enraptured lovers, Colin Morgan as a nimble Ariel and James Garnon as a Caliban who burps and spits in the groundlings' faces. In the end, however, the evening belongs to Allam.

Quentin Letts
Daily Mail
★★

Jessie Buckley... proves herself a delightful stage actress playing Miranda… Joshua James is toothy and forgivably Hoorayish as her discovered lust object Ferdinand. Roger Allam enters a new phase of his maturity as a magisterially-voiced Prospero... Colin ‘Merlin’ Morgan gives a decidedly ‘dainty Ariel’ ... Director Jeremy Herrin should insist he takes music lessons… Good touches include some skeletoned puppet guard-dogs, a shower of confetti from on high when the lovers splice, drifts of xylophone music and Mr Allam’s verse speaking (or rather shouting, when the overhead helicopters were at their worse).

Related Content

Internal Links
	Review Round-up: Did Roger Allam's Prospero stir the critics? - 3rd May 2013 roundup
	Allam, Buckley, Morgan & Millson star in Globe 2013 season - 7th Feb 2013 news
	The Tempest (Globe) - 3rd May 2013 reviews
	Allam, Buckley, Morgan & Millson star in Globe 2013 season - 7th Feb 2013 news

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The Tempest (Globe)

Venue: Shakespeare's Globe Theatre
Where: West End
Date Reviewed: 3 May 2013
WOS Rating:
Average Reader Rating:
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Jessie Buckley as Miranda & Roger Allam as Prospero (Photo: Marc Brenner)

How reluctant is Prospero to give up his power? He talks of abjuring his magic to embrace his former position but how easily does a man with the power to raise storms and control the spirits relinquish that authority for earthly baubles?

Jeremy Herrin's production of The Tempest, The Globe's season opener, proposes Prospero as a man in thrall to his books - Roger Allam's mellifluous tones suggest a man wholly in love with learning; there's a delicacy in his scenes with Colin Morgan's fleet-of-foot Ariel, a touch of tenderness. What's missing is the roughness: how did such a bookish man enslave Caliban and keep his Ariel in thrall?

But if the authority is missing there are other delights. When Prospero speaks of "some vanity of mine art", he's not exaggerating. This is someone who relishes his trickery, gleefully joining in the goddesses' dance and there's an underlying melancholy, his valedictory speech is steeped with regret.

There's particularly strong support from James Garnon's Caliban bristling with anger at his lowly position - though one feels that it would have been powerful against a more authoritarian Prospero.

Even better is the pairing of Joshua James and Jessie Buckley as Ferdinand and Miranda. They make for a delightful couple, brimming with joy as they taste the delights of first love. James is particularly strong, he comes across as a slack-jawed toff, more like a refugee from a Wodehouse book than a prince, but he mines the comic potential of Ferdinand as well as the romantic intensity.

Caliban (James Garnon), Stephano (Sam Cox) & Trinculo (Trevor Fox). Photo: Marc Brenner

In fact, Herrin's production is particularly strong on comedy; there can't be many productions of this play that produce so many laughs. Yet strangely, the comic scenes of Sam Cox's Stephano and Trevor Fox's Trinculo are rather flat.

It doesn't start well - the opening scene is almost completely inaudible thanks to the thunder effects and the Globe's harsh acoustics. The vast space of the theatre detracts from Max Jones' rather sparse design. This leads to a lack of intimacy, particularly in the final scene where Ferdinand and Miranda's appearance lacks emotional punch.

It's a curious mix: some excellent verse speaking, some fine comedy and an attractive young couple at the heart but the darker elements are missing entirely - it's a simplistic reading but one greatly appreciated by the Globe audience.

- Maxwell Cooter

Related Content

Booking Tickets & Show Listings
	The Tempest Listing Page

Internal Links
	Review Round-up: Did Roger Allam's Prospero stir the critics? - 3rd May 2013 roundup
	Allam, Buckley, Morgan & Millson star in Globe 2013 season - 7th Feb 2013 news