Love's Labour's Lost

Synopsis

The King of Navarre persuades three friends to join him in a vow of celibacy so that they can concentrate on their studies, but the beautiful princess of France and her three gorgeous ladies in waiting arrive for an informal visit.

Our Review:

29 October 2008

For Peter Hall's first home-grown production at the Rose, he has returned to the first Shakespeare play that he directed. It would be hard to believe that the version he produced more than 50 years ago was as slow moving and as solemn as this one.

This is an elegantly staged piece, and as with most Hall productions, beautifully spoken, but it’s also infused with an air of solemnity that masks the comedy.

This story of young men shunning the pleasures of life for three years hard studying until distracted by young women from the French court is rich in comic possibility. Throw in a few digs at pedantry and verbosity, some anti-Spanish jibes and enough penis jokes to keep Russell Brand amused for hours and you have the recipe for a scintillating comedy, yet it’s strangely flat.

Finbar Lynch's Berowne is older than one normally sees. He has a world-weary cynicism more akin to Benedict than the young gallant - one can scarcely recognise th...

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