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What You Will
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Synopsis
This hysterical (and occasionally historical) 90-minute gallop through all things Shakespearean is an irreverent one-man everything there is ?to be or not to be' about William Shakespeare: the greatest soliloquies ever written along with accounts of the funniest disasters ever perpetrated on the stage. Juliet's foolish nurse, gory Macbeth, Hamlet, Richard II, even Charles Dickens, James Thurber, Noel Coward and Stevie Wonder all make appearances during the evening. Drawing on his 22 years as a company member of the Royal Shakespeare Company, celebrated on both sides of the Atlantic for his performance in the title role of The Adventures of Nicholas Nickelby, and playing Hamlet, Berowne, Roderigo, Posthumous, Claudio and countless other Shakespearean roles big and very small, Rees relives the struggles and amusements of his formative years as an actor. The evening is interwoven with the fun, heartbreak, triumphs, jokes and celebrated mishaps that he, and every other actor that ever trod the boards, have encountered when coming face to face with the Bard of Avon.
Our Review:
19 September 2012
Roger Rees may be well advanced in his seventh decade, but the perennially youthful RSC star of Nicholas Nickleby, who spent two decades with the company, and now lives in New York, is still bouncing around like Tigger, and making a rare London appearance with his very own Shakespeare show.
It's all rather old-fashioned, ill-disciplined and under-produced, more of a cosy chat, really, with anecdotes and speeches of Hamlet and Romeo, gobbets of Dickens and Shaw, even a James Thurber short story about the woman who refused to believe that it was Macbeth whodunnit.
There's also a big white bust of the Bard, some red swagging, piles of books and suitcases. And an explanation of the title in the words of an agent telling his client, "They’ve offered you Twelfth Night, or What You Will; I guess they haven’t made their minds up yet."
And he goes on too long with the passage on the dispiriting blog and internet Shakespeare "conversation": the Bard wrot...
Latest User Review
David Baxter - 5 October 2012:
It's ben a good year for literary one-man shows with Simon Callow giving his on Shakespeare and Dickens and now Roger Rees with a more personal meditation on the Bard. Structurally it's rather odd with personal reminiscences mixed up with some ancient theatrical anecdotes, examples of muddle-headed student essays and some very randomly selected soliloquies. Lasting just 90 minutes though it's highly entertaining and amusing and Rees maintains an admirable enthusiasm even faced with a sparse audience. Ironically though he's at his "acting" best during a long excerpt from Great Expectations rather than any of Shakespeare's speeches. It's a curious offering but very enjoyable even if I didn't learn anything new about Shakespeare or Roger Rees....
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