The Shoemaker's Holiday

Presented by the Royal Shakespeare Company at the Swan Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon. December 11, 2014-March 7, 2015. Design by Max Jones. Lighting by Tina McHugh. Music by Jason Carr. Sound by Andrea J. Cox. Movement by Ayse Tashkiran. Fights by Renny Krupinski. Directed by Philip Breen. With Ben Allen (Askew), Ross Armstrong ( Warner), Daniel Boyd (Ralph Damport), Vincent Carmichael (Earl of Lincoln), Laura Cubitt (Seamstress), Heydd Dylan ( Jane Damport), Sandy Foster (Sybil), William Gaminara (Sir Roger Oatley), Michael Grady-Hall (Lovell), Jack Holden (Skipper/The King), Andrew Langtree (Dodger), Joel MacCormack (Firk), Tom McCall (Hodge), Josh O'Connor (Rowland Lacy), Vivien Parry (Margery Eyre), Thomasin Rand (Rose Oatley), David Troughton (Simon Eyre), and Jamie Wilkes (Hammon).

In 2014, the Royal Shakespeare Company staged several productions that, in various ways, commemorated the centenary of World War I. Erica Whyman directed The Christmas Truce, Phil Porter's new play set in December 1914, and both Love's Labour's Lost and Love's Labour's Won (the RSC's advertising gimmick title for Much Ado About Nothing) had WWI backdrops (see Jami Rogers's review below). Philip Breen's production of Thomas Dekker's The Shoemaker's Holiday, which opened at the Swan in December 2014 and played until March 2015, begged to be seen alongside these productions. Dekker's play is often read as a gleeful romp and this appeared to be confirmed by the production's casually sexist advertising trailer. In it, a group of women lined up to have their feet measured and shoes fitted; they made orgasmic faces as they were presented with their new shoes, and a caption "SHOES. SEXY SINCE 1599" was followed by the description: "A RIOTOUS COMEDY OF CLASS, CONFLICT AND COBBLERS IN LOVE." Yet the promise of carefree frivolity was not, in the end,...