Speaking Like Magpies

Synopsis

Celebrating the 400th anniversary of the Gunpowder Plot.

Our Review:

15 February 2006

NOTE: The following FOUR-STAR review dates from October 2005 and this production's original run at Stratford-upon-Avon's Swan Theatre.

Some critics say writer Frank McGuinness has lost the ‘Plot’ somewhat with his reflection on the events of November 5th, which might have been considered Jacobean England’s own 9/11 had it succeeded. Their faint praise, though, damns a consistently interesting work, staged with real bravura by director Rupert Goold and designer Matthew Wright and boasting two terrific performances.

The work opens with a theatrical flourish: the lights go down, a length of fuse bursts into flame, inches towards curtains at the rear which then collapse, revealing a debris-filled basement and a large barrel which rolls ominously centre stage, stopping perilously short of the front stalls.

Out of the barrel steps the ‘equivocator’ – our guide for the evening - satyr-like and superbly played by Kevin Harvey, who appears to characters in t...

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Latest User Review

195.93.21.98) - 26 February 2006:

AMAZING PRODUCTION, KEVIN HARVEY PLAYED THE EQUIVOCATOR FANTASTICALLY, TOLD THE STORY VERY WELL. THE WHOLE CAST WERE STRONG THROUGHOUT THE WHOLE SEASON.(MY FAVOURITE TWO PRODUCTIONS WERE NEW WAY TO PLEASE YOU AND THIS ONE.) JONJO O'NEILL AND MATT RYAN WERE EXCELLENT IN THEIR ROLES OF ROBERT CATESBY AND ROBIN WINTOUR. HOPE THIS RSC COMPANY RETURN TO LONDON FOR ANOTHER SEASON VERY SOON. ...

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