King John - RSC

[NeilVHughes]

A 60’s romp, a set up that shouldn’t work but somehow worked brilliantly.

The fight scenes in France were inspired and a lot of of fun deficient of the usual swordsmanship, special mention must go to Katherine Pearce as the Cardinal who appeared to be relishing the dominant nature of the role.

Could be a marmite production and look forward to reading other opinions, go in with a sense of fun and you could be rewarded with an intriguing and enjoyable night, maybe not one for the purists.

[lynette]

A challenge! Seeing this over Xmas break. So should be in a good mood 🤪

[lynette]

You can do anything with Shakespeare, anything at all. He comes back smiling like one of those knock down and spring back up toys. And I love a bit of messing about - ghost/no ghost/ Victorian/70s/all boys/all girls /add a bit of text/miss most of it out - all worth a viewing. But..you know it was coming...I can’t for the life of me see the point of what they did here to King John. Not the most appealing of the canon, the history is tricky and nobody knows it, the plot is tricky and not very clear if you don’t know the history and the characters are not very nice. But it fits into the old boy’s examination of power and government and Machiavellian politics. It has a weak bloke as a king and a strong bloke as a bastard at a time when the apprentices in the yard all were very aware of their lady Queen and her claim to the throne mired in questions of legitimacy. It has some good rousing rants against Catholicism and France which those apprentices would have loved and it has two stonking parts for women which our contemporary actresses usually enjoy.

Having a women play the king here gained them nothing. It reminded me of the school play, enthusiastic but lacking. If you want women to play all the parts and I’m all in favour, then do it as well as the Harriet Walter gang did at the Donmar. Think out of the box. Just making the main character a women did nowt. On the other hand, making the Cardinal a woman, which is quite impossible in reality, actually worked because of the lines in the text about the mother church and her not having had a son, so there was some purpose and the actress had fun with it.

Then the dancing, the food fight and the joking about with the audience. Pass.

So, maybe I am a a purist, Neil, though I did go with an open mind, I promise.
And there were balloons ( do they have a rule at the RSC to include balloons in this play ?) used here with great effect I thought.
But we left at the interval.

[learfan]

Went on Saturday, i shouldn't have liked it but i did! Loved the food fight. The actress playing Pandulph was clearly having a ball. Rosie Sheehy v good in the title rols. House full as far as i could see.