Jennifer Tang’s reimagined version of Shakespeare's The Tempest includes songs, occasional audience participation and a higher-than-usual profile for Caliban and Ariel, but it is still Shakespeare’s play with all the great speeches and a good chunk of the original text.
Our initial hosts on a stage that is surrounded by the assorted plastic rubbish that still rolls up on English beaches are Caliban (Ashley D Gayle) and Ariel (Juliet Agnes) who immediately lead us in song before telling us the story of how Prospero (Mark Theodore) tricked them “into serving him”. Ariel describes suffering “years of abuse”.
When he arrives to the stage, they tell him, “all we want is our liberty.” That provokes him to wrack them with pain before ordering Caliban to peddle-power the dwelling from a bike, and Ariel to shipwreck his enemies onto the island.
Miranda (Daisy Prosper) and Ferdinand (Finlay McGuiga) are also in that first scene, lying together on the ground, an image of the way the story will develop.
The main source of laughter in the play is, as usual, the antics of Trinculo (Finlay McGuiga) and Stephano (Alice Keedwel) that have in this production been trimmed to allow the show to finish in approximately seventy-five minutes. However, adding to the fun is the audience on signal shouting “thou liest” and making other noises.
Among the cuts from the play are the characters of Sebastian, the corrupt brother of Alonzo (Alice Keedwell), the King of Naples, and the court counsellor Gonzalo, who is normally pitched as the moral alternative to the corrupt rulers.
It’s a clear, well-performed, entertaining production that even held the attention of the long line of primary school children sitting a few rows below me despite them already having seen it as part of a consultation on how it worked with children before its public performance.
The show finishes the way it began, with everyone joining in song.