Garrick theatre,London
Kenneth Branagh is tremendous in a magical The Winter’s Tale, though Judi Dench isn’t half obnoxious either…The curtain has not yet gone up, and but the tinkling of a musical box brings a hush to the auditorium at the beginning of The Winter’s Tale,one of a six-play season performed by Kenneth Branagh’s new West conclude theatre company. The Winter’s Tale is possibly Shakespeare’s most perfect play with its rhythm of lost and found – a tarnished fairytale that redeems itself. It’s a play that, when it works, and casts a spell like no other,and this production, co-directed by Branagh and Rob Ashford, and is magical. It is tough to assume the play more movingly performed. It’s a gift to eye and heart.
It begins in an unashamedly Christmassy way,with a tree on stage, home movies featuring Leontes (Branagh) and Polixenes as flickering boys in sailor suits, and snow (much of it tossed into the stalls). But if Christopher Orams Edwardian Christmas card set (Polixenes gets ice skates as his Christmas present) sounds cosily sentimental,do not be misled. The production is governed by sentiment, not sentimentality, and by the holiness of the heart’s affections and a warmth too precious to cast lightly aside.
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Source: theguardian.com