Revenue up for RSC

The Stratford Herald reports that ticket sales are up 75% with £31.6 million in ticket sales last year.

The increased tickets sales means that 73 per cent of the RSC’s income for 2012/13 was self-generated, compared to 64 per cent the previous year.

These figures were announced at the Annual general Meeting on October 25, 2013.

Broadwayworld.com reported:

"The RSC gave 1,459 performances of 25 productions to a total audience of over a million people, more than 335,000 of whom were first time attenders. It worked with and trained 420 actors and welcomed 500,000 day visitors to its Stratford-upon-Avon home, with a wealth of events and exhibitions."

click here to read more.

ticket sales means that 73 per cent of the RSC’s income for 2012/13 was self-generated, compared to 64 per cent the previous year. - See more at: http://www.stratford-herald.com/Local%20News/7295-rsc-ticket-sales-increase-75-to-over-30-million.html#sthash.mmY0sfom.dpuf

ticket sales means that 73 per cent of the RSC’s income for 2012/13 was self-generated, compared to 64 per cent the previous year. - See more at: http://www.stratford-herald.com/Local%20News/7295-rsc-ticket-sales-increase-75-to-over-30-million.html#sthash.mmY0sfom.dpuf

ticket sales means that 73 per cent of the RSC’s income for 2012/13 was self-generated, compared to 64 per cent the previous year. - See more at: http://www.stratford-herald.com/Local%20News/7295-rsc-ticket-sales-increase-75-to-over-30-million.html#sthash.mmY0sfom.dpuf

ticket sales means that 73 per cent of the RSC’s income for 2012/13 was self-generated, compared to 64 per cent the previous year. - See more at: http://www.stratford-herald.com/Local%20News/7295-rsc-ticket-sales-increase-75-to-over-30-million.html#sthash.mmY0sfom.dpuf

ticket sales means that 73 per cent of the RSC’s income for 2012/13 was self-generated, compared to 64 per cent the previous year. - See more at: http://www.stratford-herald.com/Local%20News/7295-rsc-ticket-sales-increase-75-to-over-30-million.html#sthash.mmY0sfom.dpuf

ticket sales means that 73 per cent of the RSC’s income for 2012/13 was self-generated, compared to 64 per cent the previous year. - See more at: http://www.stratford-herald.com/Local%20News/7295-rsc-ticket-sales-increase-75-to-over-30-million.html#sthash.mmY0sfom.dpuf

Production Diary 9 | Richard II | Royal Shakespeare Company

Tennant is Electrifying. - The Times

Tennant triumphs as a born loser destined to lose his hollow crown 

The Times - October 18, 2013 - Dominic Maxwell

"And what Tennant does, brilliantly, is to suggest a man who feels as hollow as his crown. Who play acts at being himself. Who makes bad judgments, such as expelling his cousin Bolingbroke, soon to become Henry IV, that are a weak man's idea of being strong. He is hiding his true sexuality too, to judge by his long kiss with his cousin, Oliver Rix's Aumerle. And when he is trounced by Nigel Lindsay's stocky, gym-teacher-like Bolingbroke, he goes from ruler to martyr. He proffers the crown as if holding out a stick to a dog ("Here, cousin!"). It's electrifying."

If you would like to read the whole review please contact me.

 

 

The Cast sends out tweets on Press Nite

Press Party Pics and an award for Michael Pennington

Michael Pennington was made an RSC Honorary Associate Artist by Gregory Doran at the Richard II press party in the Chrome Bar in the Royal Shakespeare Theatre's Scott Foyer.

Doran chose the actor, who plays John of Gaunt in Richard II, as the first person of his Artisitic Directorship to name as an Honorary Associate Artist.

Two other cast members are also Honorary Associate Artist titles, Oliver Ford Davies and Jane Lapotaire.

More party photo' here.

Gregory Doran and Michael Pennington.
Photograph by Lucy Barriball.

David Tennant with Antony Sher.
Photograph by Lucy Barriball.

 

 

 

 

AND YET MORE REVIEWS AND PICS

Coventry Telegraph - Catherine Vonledebur - Four Stars - Click to read full article

"David Tennant’s effeminate, enigmatic Richard II is bisexual. He has long mahogany hair, wears nail polish and likes looking at himself in mirrors.

. . . Tennant gives an intriguing and intelligent performance as the flawed ruler.

A flippant sarcasm and vain, hard-hearted arrogance is most pronounced when he steals the land and wealth of his uncle, John of Gaunt, to fund an Irish war, just minutes after his death.

But the mask drops on the walls of Flint Castle where Richard starts to lose his grip on power and a softer, gentler side to his character is revealed as he tenderly kisses his tearful young cousin Aumerle – Oliver Rix - on the lips."

More Reviews

Contact Music - Michael West - Click here to read the full article

Richard II: Is David Tennant The Finest Actor in Britain?

The body of the article was a gathering of highlights from the many glowing reviews from the press. BBC News also published a similar collection of reviews on bbc.co.uk.

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Whats On Stage - Michael Coveney - Click here to read the full article.

David Tennant opens as Richard on a night of crowds and surprises

"I don't know what sort of Richard the Second we were supposed to expect from David Tennant – he's not a "soft" actor, after all – but he certainly sprang a few surprises at Stratford-upon-Avon last night that shredded all previously held notions about a renegade royal or martyred monarch.

A sort of angry cynicism was at the root of it, . . . (David) Warner was temperamentally ideal as both Richard II and, especially, Henry VI and it's probably the case that Tennant does at least share with him a gift for seeming out of place on the throne. 

But he also makes something unexpectedly wilful of Richard, something truly bizarre, . . ."

In foreground: L-R- Nigel Lindsay (Bolingbroke), David Tennant (Richard II) In background: L-R- Simon Thorp (Surrey), Oliver Rix (Aumerle), Jim Hooper (Bishop of Carlisle), Keith Osborn (Abbot), Sean Chapman (Northumberland), Youssef Kerkour (Fitzwater), Edmund Wiseman (Harry Percy). PHOTO by Kwame Lestrade

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The Independent - Henry Hitchings - Four Stars - Click here to read the whole article 

David Tennant returns to the RSC with a vivid, intelligent performance as Richard II in Gregory Doran’s clear, detailed and dynamic production

"Tennant does not disappoint. He delivers a vivid, intelligent performance, at least as mesmerising as the best of his TV work. He is certainly not afraid to make Richard dislikable. Instead of the poetic soul we tend to see, his Richard is irritable. In the early scenes he is petulant and smug.

With fluting voice and waist-length hair, he is a picture of prissy narcissism. And he skips around the stage like a child who has had too many sweets.

From the outset Tennant’s Richard is excitingly unpredictable and as his authoriy crumbles he transforms intriguingly from a gilded tyrant into a more vulnerable character — yet one who is capable of bursts of aggression. By the end he is a holy man in a flowing white robe."

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Stratford Observer - Ian Hughes - Click here to read the whole article.

". . . this flowing haired king is measured to a tee, and really shines when he realises the game's up. His death of kings speech is a pin-drop moment - in a play featuring some of the most lyrical verse in the canon - after he is literally brought to earth with a bump knowing the crown is lost.

Essentially the see-saw story of the rise of Bolingbroke, the taciturn opportunist, against the fall of all-talk Richard, . . . but there's a bold no nonsense confidence to Nigel Lindsay's portrayal, which brings out the best of Tennant in the deposition scene."

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The Stage - Michael Coveney - Click here to read the complete article

"The Royal Shakespeare Company enters a new era under Gregory Doran with this decisive, intelligent and notably well-spoken revival of a chronicle play that usually makes of its leading character a preening cissy or a plaintive saint.

David Tennant, resuming a partnership with Doran that gave us an electrified Hamlet five years ago, could not be less like the stereotype: he’s lanky, fierce, sardonic and obviously regarded, not least by the no-nonsense, politically ambitious Bolingbroke of Nigel Lindsay, as a bit of a liability. And not just because of the Tiny Tim hairstyle and varnished fingernails.

Something peculiar is going on with Richard’s own estimation of his role in life. The great speeches of entitlement are skewed through a critical lack of conviction, as if he’s sleep-walked into the monarchy by mistake. And in the context of the emblematic severity of the rest of the play, it makes for a performance that is as curiously enigmatic as it is sometimes unfathomable."

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 The Birmingham Mail - Gary Young - Four Stars - Click here to read the full review


"There has been great excitement about David Tennant’s much anticipated return to the RSC stage since he wowed packed audiences with his Hamlet here in 2008.

He is the poster boy for the company’s new season and with such high profile billing there was great expectation as he flounced onto the stage as a flamboyant and effeminate Richard II.

Sporting a crop of wavy long hair, painted nails, and a sceptre held in his limp wrist, Tennant’s portrayal of the tragic king was that of a self-obsessed spoilt child.

Tennant is excellent as a narcissistic Richard who sees his group of admirers diminish, leaving him a desperate and lonely king in this adaption of the history play by RSC’s artistic director Greg Doran.

A moment of tenderness comes when the king shares a kiss with his youthful cousin Aumerle - allowing us a brief glimpse of his softer side and adding much impact to a dramatic betrayal later on.
Tennant appears vulnerable and Jesus-like in his final scenes - bare-footed, sporting long white robes with a large dominating cross around his neck, holding aloft his crown as he finally gives it away to Bolingbroke."
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 The Express -  Neil Norman - Five Stars - Click for full article

David Tennant gives a bravado performance of a multi-layered, complex and intelligent medieval king in Shakespeare's masterful history play

"Often represented as effete and capricious, even gay, Richard needs a very special actor to seek out all the crevices of his personality.

David Tennant is that actor. From the moment he arrives on stage in a kind of gilded sheath with his long hair held back by a crown to attend his uncle Gloucester's funeral, he shows us with sly precision a man in thrall to his own vanity, seduced by his anointed position and intelligent enough to be aware of both.

Whether sashaying around like a 14th-century David Bowie or stumbling like a Christ figure hauled before Bolingbroke's Pontius Pilate, Tennant captures Richard's androgyny, suggesting a man more asexual than bisexual.

But he is no pushover. When the murderers come for him he goes down fighting. I was sorely tempted to cheer."