Tempest review

Wildcard Theatre has brought its gig-theatre style to Shakespeare’s weirdest play, The Tempest, and it has made the strange isle of ‘sounds and sweet airs’ even stranger. 

Lighting, sound and the performers’ energy come together to create the feel of a stadium gig, with colourful strobes that pick up the neons in the cast’s nu-rave-dystopian costumes. 

A vibrant, wide-ranging soundscape is brought to bear, composed by Jasmine Morris, designed by Daniel Balfour and performed by the actor-musicians. Music and singing are key to this show – Miranda (Ruby Crepin-Glyne) and Ferdinand’s (Tashinga Bepete) love duet I Want Your Love would work easily in a West End musical; Ariel (Loren O’Dair) sings with an ethereal voice, plays the violin and floats on aerial silks, while Caliban’s song “Ban, Ban, Caliban’’ gets the whole audience singing along. Designer Luke W Robson has incorporated a lot of interesting detail, with strange symbols of hands and anchors in gold and neon paint dotted about, further adding to a sense of a dystopian landscape.

The minor characters are fleshed out to offer more genuine comedy than traditional staging of the play usually provides, with trombonist Eleanor House as a drunk Glaswegian Stephano and drag queen Gigi Zahir as Trinculo, breaking out into a catwalk performance, with a reluctant Caliban (Alexander Bean), keeping energy levels high and providing comic relief for the coaches of schoolchildren who’ll certainly be watching. In blue trench and red wig, Zahir gets to take a fourth-wall smashing role, flitting between being in on the action and commenting on it. “Teachers, cover your ears! It’s a dick joke! Shakespeare is full of dick jokes!” she explains with unbridled glee.

The direction, by James Meteyard, contains interesting elements that fail to build to one clear vision. There’s a disparity between how ‘big’ the characters are, with some performing naturalistically and others being completely over the top. Prospero is played by Kate Littlewood with an uneven, grand swagger, seemingly denoting his crazed need for revenge; while Miranda and Ferdinand are so modest in their declarations of ardour, they barely even touch. 

Similar to the uneven physicality of the actor-musicians, themes are explored briefly and then dropped – for example, an environmental message about protecting our planet’s resources bobbed to the surface with Caliban’s speech once or twice but then vanished, never to be referenced again. Also, at almost two and half hours, it feels too long. 

Nonetheless, it’s very enjoyable, and the cast is clearly having a brilliant time, which rubs off on the audience. Though it lacks cohesion at times, this is surely one of the more vibrant interpretations of The Tempest of recent years.