Winter’s Tale (Globe)

After The Tempest and Pericles, the Globe is tackling yet another of Shakespeare’s later romances with this classic study of pathological jealousy. And for the first time this season, the Globe offers us an Elizabethan dress production, something of a speciality of the theatre.

This is a play of great contrast that always throws up a problem to directors. How does one balance the tragedy of the first three acts with the comic, pastoral scenes so that the play makes a convincing whole? Director John Dove answer is to greatly reduce the time in rural Bohemia and instead quickly move from the first half’s tragedy to Polixenes’ anger against Perdita and Florizel.

This decision also draws attention to the resemblance between Polixenes and Leontes. It’s not just in their youth that they were “as twinn’d lambs”. Wearing clothes that look like photo negatives of each other, Polixenes’ treatment of Florizel is just as ill-tempered and irrational as Leontes’ of Hermione.

It’s a nicely-paced production. The Autolycus scenes always seem as a distraction from the flow of the play. Here, while Colin Hurley as the trickster and Sam Alexander’s young shepherd keep the groundlings entertained, the more serious nature of the play is not forgotten.

And there are some excellent performances. What’s chilling about Paul Jesson’s Leontes is the understated nature of his behaviour. Rather than fly into fierce rages, he speaks his unmerited allegations of his wife in a low-key way, almost as if his wild imaginings are quite reasonable. It’s an attitude matched by Yolanda Vazquez’s Hermione, a picture of saintly forbearance, as she tries to face her accusers.

The strongest performance, though, comes from Penelope Beaumont as Paulina, the moral conscience of the play. She handbags Leontes like Maggie Thatcher laying into a corrupt Eurocrat but balances this with some tenderness. Her “an old turtle/Will wing me to some wither’d bough” speech is made more effective by her previous toughness. By making Paulina so feisty, Dove’s production also succeeds in offering an explanation for Hermione’s 16-year absence – she was probably too much in terror of Paulina to return.

This is a clear, beautifully-spoken rendition of this challenging play, easily the best production of this Globe season.

– Maxwell Cooter