Went to see Shakespeare’s 12th Night at Ripley Castle on Saturday. Ok, I admit, I didn’t want to go. I have successfully avoided Shakespeare for most of my life and I didn’t really want to start now. I don’t understand him or his plays. Anyway, as usual, I was completely wrong and I loved it.
Performed outdoors at Ripley Castle, I was expecting a large section of seats, a dim and distant stage, with actors performing a boring play. Again, wrong! It was a small audience, probably about 150 in number, who bought their own chairs / mats etc to sit on. Each scene of the play was performed in a different venue around the gardens of the castle. This made it really interesting and it also meant that characters stayed in character as they walked around the gardens / entered and exited the “performance area” etc. Really, it was brilliant.
The reason we all went was Sal’s cousin Max was performing one of the roles. Again, he was brilliant. The whole cast looked like they loved performing it and they worked so well together. So, once again I have had my preconceptions overturned. I should be much more open minded.
It was a really nice, really relaxing weekend and exactly what I needed.
