Branagh’s Dark Fairy Tale

Reviewing “live” productions broadcast from theatres in New York and the West End to movie houses has its problems. In Australia these are, of course, delayed broadcasts, but how can a reviewer get his article out in time for the reader to see the play on screen? At the time of writing, Rob Ashford and Kenneth Branagh’s production of The Winter’s Tale from London’s Garrick Theatre is no longer showing in Sydney. However, the art-houses such as the Dendy and Cremorne Orpheum do have revivals, and almost certainly there will be a DVD release. So in the hope that the broadcast will soon be available, here are my impressions of Branagh’s The Winter’s Tale.

Like so many contemporary productions of Shakespeare it is in semi-Victorian dress—a strange choice, one might think, for a romance set in a semi-mythological past. But this has become a tradition for Shakespearean production in the late twentieth and twenty-first centuries. The opening also includes a home movie….