Rainbow Shakespeare’s adaptation of William Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale took place in Highdown Gardens, a beautiful location just outside Worthing in Sussex. Open to the elements the performance was lucky to have a dry afternoon, especially after all the rain that had fallen during the week previously forcing the company to cancel performances.

King Of Sicilia (Ross Muir) suspects that his pregnant wife Hermione (Charlotte Toubolic) is carrying the child of the King of Bohemia (Alexander HJ Smith) as the two of them appear to be “getting along” very well. Consumed with jealousy and hatred he orders the new born baby to be killed and imprisoned his wife on the grounds of adultery.

With a Shakespearean play, there are no spoiler alerts or plot twists. The play is deemed to be part of his comedy collection. Although there are comedic scenes within the play. It is cruel and destructive in many ways. I would have liked to have seen Hermione leave him and enjoy her freedom. However, that’s not the conclusion written by Shakespeare.

The afternoon’s performance was also attended by a large group of French students and Peter McCrohon interacted with the students in what I presume to have been very broken French by the reaction of some of the students he spoke to. This all adds to the spontaneous interaction which can take place with live Theatre.

The star of the show for me was Simon Pennicot in the role of Autolycus a lovable rogue who danced to his tune, refusing to follow the crowd and doing whatever it took to get by in the world.

Performing a Shakespeare production in the open air offers audiences a taste of how Shakespeare had originally written his plays for the audiences to watch and become immersed in the performance. When the company performs another Shakespeare production I would highly recommend making a point of going to watch them.

For more information about Rainbow Shakespeare please visit the link below.

Four Stars.

https://www.rainbowshakespeare.co.uk/

https://highdowngardens.co.uk/rainbow-shakespeare-a-midsummer-nights-dream/

https://www.facebook.com/RainbowShakespeare/