[Jenny_tyr]

Just saw the line-up for the 2008 season at the Globe, which looks like a mixed bag of potentially very good things and some possible stinkers. After the fantastic "Titus Andronicus" that Lucy Bailey directed in 2006, I'm thrilled to see that she'll be back this year, and that she's sinking her teeth into another of the 'lesser' plays of the canon, this time "Timon of Athens" – that'll be one production that I definitely won't miss, sounds very exciting to me.

The new plays don't sound all that interesting, but if at least one of them turns out to be on par with Brenton's "In Extremis", seen at the Globe in 2006, I'll consider it a worthwhile venture, even if I'm still sceptical about how a play set in the 21st century will play at the Globe, or why you would even want it to do so.

But I must say that I greeted the news that Dromgoole is going to direct "King Lear" with some trepidation. Don't get me wrong, he's clearly someone with a real vision for the theatre (at times some excellent, excellent decisions on which plays to choose and which directors to hire) and a great deal of passion for Shakespeare, it's just that he's not exactly on a winning streak when it comes to directing the Bard himself.

Unfortunately, I couldn't get over to London last year to catch his production of "Coriolanus", which got fairly decent reviews (no guarantee for quality, I know, but it sounds as if it was at least alright) but that year's production of "Antony and Cleopatra", which he also directed, was the worst production of that play that I've seen. Ever. It was so unimaginably bad that I felt that Shakespeare ought to have had grounds to sue for malicious misrepresentation, had he been alive. Definitely one of the ten worst Shakespeare productions that I've seen in my life, and I've seen quite a few. From what I understand – please correct me if I'm wrong – Dromgoole's only other Shakespeare production prior to working at the Globe was a production of "Troilus and Cressida", which (as far as I've heard) even he acknowledges was really bad. I'm dreading to see what he does with Lear, but I hope that he proves me wrong and that I'm pleasantly surprised when I see it.

//Jenny

[Jan Brock]

The Globe. Just put a roof on it and give it to the RSC.

Yes. Then Michael Boyd can't trot out his excuse that the RSC can only do limited work in London because they "don't want to compete with the Globe".

[Lynette]

Now now, o grumpy people. The Globe attracts different audiences from those who attend RSC shows. I have never seen as many young folk at the RSC as at the Globe, nor the interaction between players and audience, nor the kind of revelations on the text that a Globe performance allows, at the RSC. Moreover, I can munch my way through tubs of chocolate nuts and slurp on tea all through a Globe show..they don't like that in Stratford.

[Jenny_tyr]

There's been some additional news about the upcoming Globe season, and I'm quite please to see that Jonathan Munby will be directing A Midsummer Night's Dream, as I rated his production of H5 at the Royal Exchange as one of my highlights of last year, so that will be interesting to see. I also note that David Calder will be playing Lear, not sure how that will turn out but it does sound promising. In their production of The Merry Wives of Windsor Sarah Woodward is now confirmed as Mistress Ford, and I just hope that she manages a better performance than she did at the Open Air's Macbeth last year, which was by far the worst Shakespeare production that I saw in 2007, but she was OK in MND there, even if it wasn't really to my liking. Still no confirmation of who will play Timon of Athens, which is the one that I'm really looking forward to since Lucy Bailey is directing that one, but I hope that whoever is cast in that role will be good.

//Jenny