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Much Ado About Nothing
The Press (York)
Sprite Productions don't do sets. Instead, they go with all that the elements and nature can throw at them - rain driving the press night into a marquee, Friday night as washed out as York Races, but Sunday's late-afternoon show a proper Yorkshire June day.
While Sprite cannot control the elements, nature has given them Ripley Castle's grounds, with its orangery, walled gardens and tree corners. They duly promenade around them with all the buzz of a bumblebee in clover.
"Promenade" is almost a misnomer. Yes, the audience moves from lawn to garden to woodland, but Lucy Kerbel's cast does not walk, stroll or saunter, amble or ramble.
Philip Benjamin's messenger sprints on a bicycle, and Tom Andrews's Benedick clambers unsteadily into a tree, hiding from Don Pedro (Christopher Harper) and co, but chomping on errant apples that fall from his grip to the gossip-stirring court below.
Hannah Summers's Beatrice climbs to and fro through the early summer borders, even diving to the earth to stay out of sight of Emily Bowker's Hero, but always in view of an audience that delights in being one step ahead, as Hero feeds thoughts of Benedick's love in cousin Beartrice's mind.
Much Ado is Sprite's third summer of Shakespeare in Ripley's open air, and just as she did last year with an audacious Romeo and Juliet, director Lucy Kerbel marries effervescent dialogue with clear characterisation, purposeful pace and natural settings that would send Constable to his brushes. As before Geoffrey Hense's violin adds playful comment, sometimes accompanied by piano, while Hayley Nebauer's costumes again enhance character as much as period.
Kerbel has chosen an English country garden (how convenient) for Much Ado's milieu, and placed the play in 1900 when courtly thoughts could turn from war to love, but that is mere dressing. The playing is the thing, and year by year, Sprite's cast surpass the previous one.
Summers and Andrews are particularly pleasurable; Bowkers wounded Hero and Thomas Wilton's duped Claudio shine too; Jack Whitam's villainous Don John is a cadaverous party pooper and Corinna Marlowe's self important Dogberry has her day. Much Ado, much to recommend: do see it.
Charles Hutchinson
Harrogate Advertiser
A real tour de force
Open air Shakespeare productions have been running at the Ripley Castle estate each June for the last three years, and are becoming increasingly popular.
It's easy to see why. The promise of a classic Bard play presented by Royal Shakespeare Company actors is tempting enough, but add to that the idea of watching said play outside on a warm summer's evening and it's an almost irresistible prospect.
That is, of course, if the weather is good. Organisers had to erect a marquee last Wednesday to keep out the inclement weather and the show was cancelled on Friday following the torrential rain.
In comparison, the audience at Tuesday evening's performance got off lightly, with not even the hint of a drop of rain. In the second half of the show, however, as the weather really cooled down, jumpers and coats were defiantly in order, with some people even using rugs they'd brought for picnics as blankets.
However, the chill was forgotten in the light of a fantastic production, which was packed with pace, humour and energy.
Having directed Romeo and Juliet at Ripley last year, Lucy Kerbel seemed to have mastered her use of the venue. A big draw of these shows is that they are presented in the 'promenade' style of theatre, which allows the audience to follow the actors around the venue. So not only do you get to watch the show, but you also get a tour of the estate!
And what a beautiful estate it is - we were led around the pristinely cultivated flower beds of the walled garden, stopped of outside the orangery, filed through high hedges and ornate archways and emerged into clearings lit by lanterns in the woods.
The gardens at Ripley really lent themselves well to this, one of Shakespeare's best known comedies. The scenes of visual humour were particularly successful, with characters hauling themselves drunkenly over walls or surreptitiously listening in on conversations by hiding in trees and among the shrubbery.
It felt as if we were on the set of a film version of the play.
A final mention must be made for the eight pupils from the Knaresborough school of speech and Drama, who fitted in perfectly with the professional actors in their roles as servants and watchmen.
Well worth a visit!
Katie Oxtoby
Yorkshire Post
Shakespeare so good within tent
There is a thin line between insane and inspired.
That line is about the thickness of a marquee roof.
Sprite Productions is in it's third year of staging outdoor Shakespeare in the grounds of Ripley Castle.
A beautiful setting, it's a perfect summer evening - if it's a perfect summer evening. If, as was the case on Wednesday, the rain gods are not smiling, then it can seem, to borrow a phrase from the Bard, very midsummer madness to stage Shakespeare outdoors.
As the heavens opened and a hardy audience made it's way to Ripley Castle, Sprite put plan B into action.
Instead of roaming the grounds, the actors played Shakespeare's much - loved comedy inside a marquee.
Much Ado is one of Shakespeare's most popular comedies and contains two of his most fun - filled characters in the constantly bickering Beatrice and Benedick.
Returning from the war to spend time revelling in the court of Messina, the soldiers find way's to make merry by creating a match between the seemingly mismatched Beatrice and Benedick.
These actors earned their applause. By the end of the evening they had battled against rain trying to drown out their voices, a temperamental generator, which left them in darkness for several crucial scenes, and a complete change of setting from the one in which they had rehearsed.
Not only did they battle gamely, but in several instances they lifted their game and with the audience created a spirit of "getting through this together".
Young up - and - coming director Lucy Kerbel does an incredible job of making Shakespeare's language immediate. She infuses the script with a freshness and lightness that not many directors would manage.
She is blessed with a set of strong performances, none stronger than Tom Andrews, as Benedick, who took enormous pleasure in the free rein the slightly anarchic circumstances granted him.
Being constrained to the marquee gave him the opportunity to make his performance fly, and his improvisation smacked of an actor with an iron grasp on his character.
Hannah Summer's Beatrice took a little longer to warn to, but eventually wins over the audience.
This might be midsummer madness, but Sprite has proved there is method in it.
Nick Ahad
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