I have seen most of Gregory Doran's recent productions for the RSC and have been less impressed each time. I keep going because I've never seen the particular play before, but Doran seems to use the same techniques each time. I never engage with the characters, and it feels peculiarly shallow. I saw Antony and Cleopatra, Coriolanus, Hamlet, Midsummer Night's Dream and Love's Labour's. What amazes me is that he serves up the same every time and still manages to get a positive critical reception. Is it just me, or does anyone else find him tiresome?

just you, mate

I regard him as being a similar director to Peter Hall: if it is a good play his production is good, if it is a weak play his production is weak - you could say he is overly respectful of the text which could be a positive or negative comment. He really doesn't seem to be able to radically reinterpret to a play (unlike Michael Boyd, Rupert Goold, Trevor Nunn) which is also either a good or bad thing depending on your viewpoint. I think some of his productions have been excellent (Winters Tale) and some poor (Timon of Athens).

Personally I dislike his overuse of Antony Sher, but that is probably just me.

He doesn't always get a positive critical reaction. I've seen some very good productions and some not-so-good, in other words much like many other directors.

Sher seems to have stepped back a bit now but at one time it was more-or-less a given that a Doran would contain Sher. An actress I know worked with them and said the "Greg & Antony Show" could get a bit tiresome. Like others here, I sometimes found the combination of Doran's direction and Sher's mannered stage work a bit much - I remember being very struck by the difference in Sher's and Alex Jennings's Leontes in the RSC and NT Winters Tales that were quite close together (AJ's being miles better).

Didn't the Doran-Sher package give us Mahler's Conversion? I didn't see it but I recall it getting a right old kicking in the press.

Doran's productions usually look very nice. This appeals to some theatregoers (and to me too). For example, his Henry VIII was wildly praised, and the staging (all the processional stuff) looked very impressive, but underneath that the actual insight into the politics of the play was entirely absent unlike in (say) the Howard Davies production.

Like Hall, his productions are best when he has very good actors in them - Doran's "Antony & Ceopatra" and Hall's "Coriolanus" for example - neither particularly great as productions as such, but elevated into something very good by the actors (and, I suppose, the direction of the actors). This is not really the case wiwth some other directors (Michael Boyd - his best productions have been devoid of "stars").

Jan, this kind of well-reasoned argument supported by relevant examples has no place on an internet discussion board.

I know, but, like the BBC, my humble aim is always to inform, educate and entertain the unenlightened masses and, through my shining example, elevate the level of debate on this board.

For me, what you get with Doran is a solid "risk free" interpretation. That's not to say it's not intelligent by any means - but it's perhaps not full of the intellectual insight you can get with Boyd or the "bang" that you can get with Goold.

He has had flops - of course - Merry Wives anyone? But mostly it's like the old days of M&S - it's solid and good value. And some might argue that with ticket prices costing over £40 for some seats, you don't want too much of a risk.

Personally, I like the division of roles at the RSC - Michael Boyd has proven an excellent Artistic Director and his productions often have insight. Doran provides a safe pair of hands and has consistenty produced solid productions - some better than that. In that way, he is a bit like Dominic Cook. They are, as you say, mostly good to look at and he generally provides a thoughtful examination of the text - and often no more than that. On that basis, I don't think he is particularly over-rated - he is generally consistent, doesn't relay on directorial gimicks, but it is perhaps fair to say that he doesn't make you think afresh about productions as often as Boyd or Goold does. I think he is most popular with those who believe the text and the actors provide the insight rather than the director. For me, there is room for both.

Hurrah, TW!

I was beginning to think I was alone in finding Greg Doran’s recent productions uninspiring (lest I risk lynching by teenage Whovians, I should add that I’ve yet to see ‘Hamlet’). I thought his ‘Dream’ was completely lacking in magic and humour and his ‘Coriolanus’ irritatingly devoid of any political insight. And as for 'Merry Wives' .... 'nuff said. His ‘Antony and Cleopatra’ was OK – but I suspect that was due to Stewart and Walter rather than the direction.

However, I don’t think it’s just Doran’s work – to me the whole of the RSC seems to be going through a pretty bad patch (the current ‘Shrew’ and ‘Merchant’ are embarrassments that should never have made it beyond the rehearsal room).

There was a time when Stratford was the place to see Shakespeare performed – sadly, those days are long gone. There are companies in America, Europe and Australia who routinely produce better Shakespeare than the RSC. I had hoped that the Complete Works Cycle would serve to reinvigorate the RSC, but no such luck; It just served to highlight the fact that other people are doing it better (compare the American ‘Merchant’ with the RSC’s current offering to see what I mean).

I hope the poor standard of the last few years can be reversed – but I fear it will take some new people with some real flair and insight.

There is room for Doran as the RSC's "safe pair of hands", and with Goold joining in 2010 there will be an injection of flair. I think the Histories have done something to highlight how good a director Michael Boyd is - for example his "Troilus and Cressida" was a work of real genius. I agree that the jobbing directors they have employed (under the old pal's act I suppose) recently are simply not up to the job, starting with the truly awful Romeo + Juliet from Peter Gill and continuing through the likes of Neil Bartlett (someone who couldn't even fill the Lyric Hammersmith with his Shakespeare productions).

tsaurus, you must be very, very young to think this is a bad patch! Not lived through some of the wonderful rubbish of the past? You have to be in it for the long term.

But this period isn't actually so bad - what about the Histories? They were super on the whole and just what the RSC should be doing with that difficult material. Lots to praise. I think I recognise a grumpy moment because I have them too. And then all the productions become besmirched.
I like Doran shows on the whole. In fact I usually breathe a sigh of relief because I know he has read the play, something you can't always be sure of. When it is supposed to be funny it usually is and he gets a good performance out of all the actors. Merry Wives the Musical was the exception . I hadn't realised he did that one. Dire.

Alas, not so….. but I did spend a long period outside the UK and saw little at the RSC between the late 1980s and early 2000s. Consequently, I’m really comparing the RSC of the last few years with my memories of the RSC of the 1980s and finding it sadly lacking.

Now I’m the first to concede that there may be a bit of a rose tinted spectacle effect and that my own tastes may have matured in the interim. However, I just don’t remember anything back then to compare in sheer awfulness to the current ‘Shrew’, the appalling riverdance-y ‘Romeo and Juliet’ or ‘Merry Wives – The Musical’. OK, there was a rather disastrous pairing of ‘Titus Andronicus’ and ‘Two Gentlemen of Verona’ with Patrick Stewart and Sheila Hancock (anyone else remember that one?) – but mostly I remember quality productions at the RSC.

I agree that the ’Histories’ are very much the kind of project that the RSC should be doing. I can’t comment on these productions as I didn’t see them - partly because I didn’t fancy spending so long sitting in the ‘Courtyard’ theatre – does it also make me a hopeless dinosaur because I prefer the old proscenium arrangement?

I’ll concede a ‘grumpy moment’ and I do think there have been good things (Goold’s ‘Tempest’; the Cuban ‘Much Ado’) but it still seems to me that the balance has shifted at the RSC and that good productions there are now the exception rather than the norm.

I couldn't disagree more about Doran's DREAM. I have been in or seen many productions of the play over the last 30 years in England and America (this includes Noble's 1994 DREAM and the subsequent film). Doran's production was the only one I've ever that gets all 3 elements of the play--Lovers, Mechanicals, Fairies--right!

I agree it was an excellent production - I have not seen it "reimagined" for the Courtyard though - I saw it in its original proscenium arch format. Almost the best I have seen, but not quite as good as the Bill Bryden Cottesloe production (I did not see the famous Peter Brook one).

Incidentally, Billington made a good point the other day, he said the thrust stage format results in the director/actors seeking to involve the front row of the audience in various bits of lame and unfunny business - he is right, that is becoming a bit of a tedious element of the RSC's house style.

I had a totally different impression. Yes, there were some outstanding imports to the Complete Works (loved Titus, Supple's Dream, and you are right, the Merchant was superb too) - but equally there were some shockers (and not just the more experimental but wierd Italian Henry V and the Polish Macbeth, but also the oddly spoken Henry IVs, the visually funny, but textually vapid Love's Labour's Lost, the poor As You Like It, and the dissapointing Cymbeline and T&C) while the "house" productions were much more reliably of a good quality (OK, let's forget Merry Wives - Please!). And some were amongst the best of the year - Anthony & Cleo, Much Ado, Tempest, the Henry VIs, Lear etc. My over-riding impression was that there is a very mixed bunch out there - some excellent, some terrible - but the RSC productions rarely missed and were consistently good to better than good.

I do agree with the points on this thread that some of the invited directors appear to be out of their depth - and it is strange that it appears to take two strikes before they get dropped - and yes, the current Merchant is DULL and the Shrew not much better (although better than the same director's terrible Macbeth) and the prospect of another Bartlett production is not filling me with optimism. But to conclude that the RSC is going through a bad patch seems unair. Boyd's histories were terrific, he's largely repaired the mess that Noble left, restored pride to the company and, while not fully there yet (there remains the London pressence issue) the evidence is that he will get round to it. The fact that he's not trying to do it all at one is probably the root of his success. I suspect another is the knowledge that Doran is the "safe pair of hands" to bring this back on thread...