It’s almost three years since Shakespeare specialists 1623 produced a new version of Much Ado About Nothing. Now the company has taken The Winter’s Tale and given it a modern take, which should introduce the Bard to a younger audience as well as adding a new dimension for anyone familiar with the play.
The task of translating The Winter’s Tale into modern English fell to Tracy Young, who wrote it as part of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival’s Play On! project. The idea was to make Shakespeare accessible to modern audiences.
Young has done a good job with The Winter’s Tale, which is regarded as a problem play because it mixes intense psychological drama with a comic second half.
The Winter’s Tale is created by a team of deaf, disabled, LGBTQ+, global majority, neurodivergent and working-class theatre-makers. It features British Sign Language in some scenes. Unlike Much Ado, words spoken by actors who sign are explained for the benefit of those who are non-signers.
This new translation is set in Sicilia Court, a run-down council estate waiting to be levelled up. When the king of the estate accuses his wife of adultery, he shames her in public and threatens anyone who dares to challenge him.
By setting the story on a council estate, Leontes loses much of his regality. The compensation is a stirring performance from Oliver Tunstall who depicts Leontes as an enraged, jealous, unshakeable autocrat with a predilection for cocaine. His transformation at the end is touching, his repentance that of a man who reluctantly swallows his pride and apologises.
Tunstall also gives an impressive depiction of Autolycus, the roguish peddler and pickpocket who does a lot to bring the second half alive.
Karen Spicer provides light relief as she welcomes everyone into the theatre at the start and gets plenty of laughs as the Sage during the springtime festival in Bohemia Park.
Eerin Siobhan Hutching is a towering Paulina, a strong defender of wronged wife Hermione (Donna Mullings) and unceasing in her criticism of Leontes. She handles the resurrection of the apparently dead queen with sensitivity and panache.
Elliot Webster-Mockett comes into his own in the second half, his Polixenes developing a nasty streak when he learns his only son, Florizel (J J Cruikshank), has fallen in love with shepherd’s daughter Perdita (Wambui Hardcastle).
Co-directors Ben Spiller and Sophie Stone work tirelessly to get the cast to fulfil their potential, the production having sufficient pace to maintain the audience’s interest. The first half really doesn’t seem like 90 minutes long.
On the small Derby Theatre Studio stage, the cast occasionally seem to be constricted by the space, and there is little scenery to differentiate between Sicilia Court and Bohemia Park.
While Tracy Young’s script gives new meaning to Shakespeare’s work, the ending seems a little unsatisfactory with the proclamation that the characters are “precious winners all”.
Apart from that, there is tension, poignancy and laughter in this adaptation of The Winter’s Tale. Let’s hope it will tour later this year so that more people can experience Shakespeare’s genius in a new way.