Shakespeare Performances in England, 2018

Dividing this review into two sections for the first time this year made painfully evident just how much Shakespearian performance goes on in the capital. With Paul Prescott taking on reviewing duties for productions outside of London, and me confining myself to those performed within the bounds of the M25, we split the usual length of the Survey review equally between us. The smorgasbord of Shakespeare on offer within my geographical remit, combined with a particularly Shakespeare-heavy summer season at Shakespeare’s Globe, meant that I ended up having to forgo a number of London-based productions: revivals were out, so I missed Filter’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Lyric Hammersmith, and Jonathan Munby’s King Lear in the West End; I was unable to attend a number of shows with shorter runs, such as Max Webster’s As You Like It at Regent’s Park and Paper Cinema’s Macbeth at Battersea Arts Centre