“Like all the best Shakespeare done proper, ‘Be Not Afeard’ can be enjoyed by those of us who live and breathe the bard as well as those who couldn’t give a honk about the Swan of Avon.”

Editorial Rating: 4 Stars (Outstanding)

Theatre is a sensory experience. Arguably, theatre was the first sensory experience conjured by the earliest humans that was indisputably distinct from the natural world. The Victorians liked their theatre grand and pagentrick, a feast for the senses, which is why they favoured scripts such as ‘King John’ with its many parading princes. The original Globe Theatre burnt down as a result of a prop cannon gone wrong. Costumes, properties, scenery, standing with one’s legs apart shouting lines at the audience – these are all variations of the conjuring art of Theatre.

The Tempest lends itself to such magic. It is possible that Shakespeare wrote the part of Prospero for himself at the end of his star-studded career – “Now my charms are all o’erthrown, And what strength I have’s mine own.” What a closing night that must have been. Percy Stow’s pioneering 1908 silent movie version of The Tempest makes this paragraph’s point far better than I can.

So it’s wonderful to see a live production, aimed at us CBeebies viewers, delivering such a wealth of sensory charms, none of which would be out of place in a grown-up version, and delivering the same with such artistic precision. For the script, Collar & Cuffs Co. have taken inspiration from the underpinning themes of The Tempest without getting bogged down in the occasionally cumbersome plot. It’s the elegant equivalent of summarising Sir Walter Raleigh’s The Discovery of Guiana with just a picture of a potato and a pipe of tobacco. Like all the best Shakespeare done proper, ‘Be Not Afeard’ can be enjoyed by those of us who live and breathe the bard as well as those who couldn’t give a honk about the Swan of Avon.

Daughter 1.0 (8yrs) wrote in her notebook – the one with Arthur Rackham’s etching of Disney’s Maui arm wrestling Caliban on the cover:

“Yesterday I went to the tempest. When I walked in I Saw a big mat and three bins and a tent. We were asked to sit on the edge of the mat. The story was about all of us going on a long journey to find a magic artist and take them home.

I liked when they sprayed us with warter and balls I realy enjoyed it and it looked like the little kids did too!”

What this show did need was more bustle and less bossy. Bustle is Widdow Twanky or Captain Mainwaring taking themselves far more seriously than anyone else in the room. We can all giggle at that. Bossy is being slightly hungover at a raucous kids’ show and being endlessly told what to do in a way that might make artistically-minded disruptive kids want to throw a chair at their constricting early years teacher.

This is the show that Shakespeare would have taken his son Hamnet to if the latter hadn’t been so taken with the snake roll’d in a flowering bank With shining chequer’d slough. It’s a show that will stick long in the mind for its artistry and ingenuity.

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Reviewer: Dan Lentell

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