Theatre

Free theatre | Shakespeare's Globe | Open Air Theatre | Fringe

Shakespeare's Globe

King Lear
Until August 17
Complete with Medieval veils, Middle-English music and storm effects emanating from giant iron drums, director Dominic Dromgoole's ‘King Lear’ tops the current Time Out ratings for outdoor theatre. Some slightly dodgy supporting performances but but David Calder’s crownless King is breathtaking.
Read review

The Frontline
Until August 17
Ché Walker's new play describes life among the druggies and dealers of Camden. Set outside Camden Tube station.
Read review
Read feature

Merry Wives of Windsor
Until October 5
Director Christopher Luscombe draws on British televisual humour to create a hugely enjoyable version of Shakespeare's rarely performed bourgeois comedy. Again, expert musical accompaniment, brashly colourful costume and spot-on stage set add to a delightful night.
Read review Feature continues

A Midsummer Night's Dream
Until October 4
Jonathan Munby, who directs here, reminds us of his skill in luscious, multi-sensory theatre, taking Shakespeare’s much-loved comedy of errors, binding it in a tapestry of music, magic and madcap ebullience, and launching an irrepressible crowd-pleaser.
Read review

Free theatre | Shakespeare's Globe | Open Air Theatre | Fringe

Open Air Theatre Regent's Park

Twelfth Night
Until July 30
Plenty of gender confusion, amorous insanity, inventive visual clowning and bawdy musical numbers add to Edward Dick's Jazz Age-style production of the Bard's bittersweet comedy.
Read review

A Midsummer Night's Dream re-imagined for a young audience
Until August 2
With heroin-chic fairies in tattered tutus and lovers shedding sumptuous black gowns to reveal an ample bosom, the Globe's production is certainly an adult affair. But fortunately there's a new 80-minute version of Shakespeare's frolicsome comedy for everyone aged six and over.
Read review

Romeo and Juliet
Until August 2
With Teddy Boys scrapping with flick-knives and the women swirling in full ’50s circle skirts, new artistic director Tim Sheader creates a highly choreographed mafiosi-style context for Shakespeare’s warring families, though he can't manage to upstage the park's idyllic surroundings.
Read review

Gigi
Aug 6-Sept 13
Topol and Millicent Martin star in Lerner and Loewe musical, set in turn of the century Paris and featuring 'Thank Heaven for Little Girls', the dubious number made famous by Maurice Chevalier.

Free theatre | Shakespeare's Globe | Open Air Theatre | Fringe

Free theatre

The Scoop
July 31-Sept 7
The sixth annual summer season of free theatre at The Scoop at More London amphitheatre, next to City Hall on the South Bank of the Thames, will include Lorca’s tragedy 'Blood Wedding' and 'Petite Rouge - A Cajun Red Riding Hood', a new family musical version of the Little Red Riding Hood story, from New Orleans.

Watch This Space
Until Aug 31
The National Theatre’s popular free outdoor summer theatre festival of over 200 events includes Avanti Display with ‘Leak’; Teatr Biuro Podrozy with ‘Macbeth: Who is that Bloodied Man?’ with motorbikes, stilts and a burning castle; ‘The Threepenny Ring Cycle’ in which Les Grooms present sixteens hours of Wagner in 79 minutes; and 'The Black Maze' in which the square will be packed with installations of all shapes and sizes.

This week: Fresh Faces 08, 'Pig', 'Vegetable Nannies' and 'The Station'.

Free theatre | Shakespeare's Globe | Open Air Theatre | Fringe

Fringe

Romeo and Juliet
Forty Hall, Enfield, July 8-19

Romeo and Juliet
Coram's Fields, July 24-Aug 9

Free theatre | Shakespeare's Globe | Open Air Theatre | Fringe