The Taming of the Shrew

The Independent“Bailey adds further layers...” Where the production fails is in plumbing any depth in its central scenes, when Petruchio turns tyrant to tame Kate. Yet a clutch of interesting twists are brought out in her final, notoriously cowed speech...

The Observer“Always on the move and changing shape, emotionally and physically...” This is the first time I have been able to enjoy Shakespeare's most scantily written drama. Rarely can it have been so dynamic and rarely so feral...

Financial Times“Lucy Bailey almost entirely nails it...” Reservations pale in the face of so successful a staging of what had hitherto always seemed a reactionary interpretation. This can still be a more or less straightforward romantic comedy...

The Stage“The best RSC version for ages...” The RSC has found an ideal and highly intelligent cast to unleash the play’s heart, wit and emotional profundity and, after the Stratford run, it should bring great pleasure to audiences on tour...

Whatsonstage.com“A generous treatment of the play’s excesses...” You even begin to realise that the violent comic skirmishes are all about foreplay and that the conclusion is a guarantee that the participants have not made a terrible mistake in finding each other. Their joy, and ours, is unconfined...

this is london“It's an uneasy-making play for modern audiences...” The approach, which has the cast constantly bounding about, has its merits, but also ducks the need for any serious examination of how on earth Kate and Petruchio's marriage might function after that epic wedding night...

Guardian“Vigorous, lively and inventive, but it never touches the heart...” Even in Dillon's mockingly ironic final speech of submission, you feel this is a relationship based exclusively on sex without much hint of love. Bailey's crowded canvas is, however, packed with as much animated detail as a Fellini movie...

The Telegraph“Startling, blissfully funny and unexpectedly moving...” There is far more fun, detail and invention in the portrayal of the usually one-dimensional supporting characters than is usually the case and one reels out of this production of Shakespeare's most contentious comedy in a state of giddy happiness...