Robert Tanitch reviews The Winter’s Tale at Garrick Theatre, London WC2
The good news is Kenneth Branagh is back on the West End stage after a very long absence with a year-long season of plays. He opens with two productions which alternate: Shakespeare’s tragi-comedy, The Winter’s Tale, and Terence Rattigan’s farce, Harlequinade
The best Winter’s Tale I have seen was Trevor Nunn’s for the RSC at Stratford in 1969. Judi Dench played Hermione and Perdita, a double act which had only been performed once previously by Mary Anderson in 1887 and has not, I think, been repeated again.
Judi Dench is now appearing as Paulina, who so vehemently and so courageously defends Hermione when she is accused of adultery by her husband, Leontes. Dench, humane, no termagant, is so moving when she apologises for having spoken so harshly.
Leontes’s jealousy, insanely irrational, is second only to Othello’s. Kenneth Branagh’s muted performance, more domestic than classical, hints that it is Leontes’s love for Polixenes, which makes him so paranoid. He can’t bear the idea that Polixenes, who has been his best friend since they were boys together, could love Hermione.
Miranda Raison as Hermione has great dignity at her trial. She is beautifully statuesque in her final scene. Hadley Fraser’s Polixines has a spectacular loss of temper when he discovers his son-and-heir (a virile Tom Bateman) is intending to marry a sexy milkmaid (Jessie Buckley) and behaves as tyrannically as Leontes.
There is a strong performance by Michael Pennington as Camillo, who makes his exit pursued by a curtain. John Dangleish’s Autolycus is a Dickensian comic rogue. The dancing shepherds and lasses, he fleeces, have been so over-choreographed they look as if they are rehearsing for a Broadway musical.
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