Stream: Two Noble Kinsmen
This play, written between 1613 and 1614 in collaboration with John Fletcher and derived from Chaucer’s Knights Tale, was Shakespeare’ last work and is rarely performed. Under the inspired direction of Barrie Rutter, it provides the perfect light entertainment for these dark times. It contains everything you would want to see on a good night out for Elizabethan audiences past and a present. Comedy, infatuation, moral choices, wrestling plus dance and song. Of course, the setting is pastoral Merrie England, also known as ancient Greece, with Arcite and Palemon, the two knights, falling in love with the same noblewoman Emilia. Set in Thebes under the rule of Theseus and his Amazonian wife Hippolyta, the story plays out either in the royal court or below stairs.
There are plenty of sub plots, twists, and turns with comical mechanicals, Morris dancing, madness, intervention by the Gods and plenty of wandering in the forest. If you know and love ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ or ‘As You Like it’, then this play is your cup of tea. However, I suspect without the deft direction of Barrie Rutter OBE in his first outing since standing down as director of Northern Broadsides, audiences would be scratching their heads. He directs the superb cast with lightning touch in this 2018 production. Not a second is wasted between scenes and the complicated story romps along at a pace. The cast are decked in multicoloured Elizabethan costumes and music is played live by the Globe ensemble. No special effects other than a few stage props and staves. The delivery of the text is robust and clear in the early evening air. Mention must be made of Francesca Mills as the Jailor’s daughter, who almost steals the show. Paul Stocker and Brian Dick also bounce off each other with brio as the two hapless knights.
When the world is facing such adversity and the news is too awful to contemplate, then again Shakespeare provides us with something to lift our hearts and minds. A five-star production.
Available to stream for free on YouTube until the 17th of May.
