12:48pm Friday 23rd July 2010
SIMON Callow, one of Britain’s finest actors, had a packed first-night audience mesmerised as he brought The Man from Stratford vividly to life on the Malvern stage on Tuesday.
This is theatre at its very best as an actor at the top of his game delivers a fabulous performance of a piece that creates a picture of Shakespeare through his own ‘seven ages’ - from cradle to grave - revealing the humanity behind the genius of the world’s greatest playwright.
Watching King Lear, Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet or any other of Shakespeare’s masterpieces reveals little of the man behind them, and The Man from Stratford goes a long way to fill in the gaps, bringing the man to life, from his grammar school education (Latin learned by rote and used to say one thing in myriad ways providing the foundations for his creativity) Following the seven ages of man this one-man show by Jonathan Bate took us from Shakespeare’s birth to his death, with Callow playing both narrator and actor of a breathtaking range of roles, including an all-too-brief but brilliant rendition of all the mechanicals being allocated their parts for Pyramus and Thisbe in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. A spare set with a subtly employed selection of props provided the perfect unobtrusive backdrop to the main event - an acting masterclass that left you wondering how on earth the compelling Callow remembered it all, and how he could switch so effortlessly and convincingly between roles. This was an evening that effortlessly combined a little education - about Shakespeare’s glove-making, local big-wig father, the tragic death of his son Hamnet, his mentors and his life in London - with a great deal of entertainment and a sense of privilege at having seen a dazzling performance from a great actor.
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