Shakespeare's Globe hosts a colourful Spanish revival of Love's Labour's Lost, a slightly obscure comedy of the playwright. The oddity is the ending and how everything is deferred for a year, of which there is no resolution.
There's not a whiff of a breeze from the Thames, and so our sun-drenched audience enjoys sangria and waft their woven or fabric fans to keep cool within the open air theatre.
Bullfights, flamenco and serenades are the rhythm of this production. Indiana Lown-Collins's revival manages to weave each of these into the show without taking away from the story. The bullfight enhances the passion with a swap of gender roles of the bullfighter. It's a terrific dance and is beautifully intimate with the round stage in the crowd. The way the dance quickens in pace to add tension is well choreographed and the artistic choice to use bloodied hands does bring more weight to the bull's death.
At times the accents and Spanish lingo disrupt and distract from what is being said, but for the most part it is used well, especially for comedic effect. We hear adieu turned into adios and many chants of ole!
I'd recommend a quick revisit of the plot (or read the programme), as you may get slightly mixed up with a show that revels in misdirection and confusion. In the play we have swapped love letters, the Spanish King and lords disguising themselves as Russians, and the Spanish Princess and her ladies masking their identities to confuse the lords.
So what's it all about? The King of Navarre (Ned Costello) and his lords Berowne (Philip Arditi), Longaville (Philip Labey), and Dumaine (Jax Guerrero) vow to devote themselves and avoid women, but become hotblooded when the Princess of Spain (Norah Lopez Holden) and her ladies arrive. The costumes are beautifully contrasted, the men are the ones in pure virginal white, whereas our Spanish Princess and group are passionate with reds, purples and pinks.
Speaking of costumes, the textures and colours were superb - I loved Dumaine's textured two-piece. The way Berowne's shirt opens as the show goes on to reveal his chest is another simple example of how the character's sexual desire becomes more apparent as the show continues. The costume team deserves top marks.
The four men get to play and have fun on stage. The scene where each confesses their love and is overheard by the others is one of their two highlights. The genius move to get each of them to sing to a modern Spanish song's melody like Ricky Martin's ‘Livin' La Vida Loca' and Luis Fonsi's ‘Despacito' had the audience swooning and cheering for them. Then, when it quickly contrasted to the chastising from Berowne, which has great dramatic irony, is even funnier still.
The other highlight is the Russian scene. The codpieces are hilarious (similar to how they are used as costume in The Bridge Theatre's Into The Woods), they make it more fun to laugh at our male cast who share ‘sweet fellowship in shame'.
The acoustic instruments played from start to finish create an atmosphere that we've just stumbled upon a performance in an old Spanish town, and music and dance is used to great effect to keep pace in the show. There are times when the vocals get lost against the clapping and clicking of castanets, and that's a bit of a shame.
Our Spanish Princess plays a game of will, she wills to break his will, and we're really rooting for her throughout the show to win out and best the men. She succeeds and it's a satisfying show because of it.
This is a very fun comedy, but it's not particularly meaningful. Shakespeare's play exists to entertain, and this take on it felt unique and matches our sizzling summer very well. Fans flutter and laughter echoes around The Globe this season.
It runs until 13 September.
Review: James Dix Photos: Tristram Kenton