Another good day yesterday including an interview at the famous Adelaide Fringe Caravan in Rundle Mall, followed by a lovely Four Star review online today in the Adelaide Advertiser's 'Adelaide Now'.

Here it is:

Shakespeare's Queens: She-wolves and Serpents

by: Louise Nunn
From: The Advertiser
March 02, 2012 3:12PM


Shakespeare's back from the dead to settle a debate between Elizabeth I and Mary Queen of Scots on the role of queens. Elizabeth thinks they should rule like kings, sacrificing family for country. Mary takes the opposite view. Which side is Shakespeare on?

Shakespeare's Queens is the sequel to Straylight Australia's successful 2011 Fringe show Shakespeare's Mothers.

What could amount to a merry romp is so much more. Elizabeth and Mary squabble and point-score between re-enactments of pertinent scenes from 16 plays including King Lear (Queen Goneril), Hamlet (Queen Hamlet), A Midsummer Night's Dream (Fairy Queen Titania) and Henry VIII (Anne Boleyn).

More than a dozen queens make the mix. Shakespeare has them covered - seductive, vain, ambitious, murderous, maternal, clever and kind.

Rachel Ferris, Kath Perry and Patrick Trumper fill multiple roles with aplomb, on a set with a few chairs and some simple props, and the actors resplendent in period costume.

It's a trip back through history, a stroll through some of theatre's finest and less famous moments, a light-hearted literary analysis and a lesson in sexual politics.

Entertaining and insightful.



Bakehouse Theatre, until March 17