The Tempest review – Tim Crouch’s high-concept treatment roughs up the magic

2026-01-30 - 15:35

Sam Wanamaker Playhouse, London Some spells are cast by this show, in which the director stars as Prospero, but it wearingly replays the same tricks The Tempest seems like the perfect Shakespeare drama for an experimentalist. It is all about artifice, after all, and interrogates the construction of art as illusion through Prospero’s rough magic. So its pairing with experimental writer-actor-director Tim Crouch seems like a natural one. Or rather non-naturalist because this painfully high-concept production comprehensively underlines its artifice. It emphatically punctures the fourth wall until the drama becomes leaden with messages about theatre, and the act of watching is draining. Maybe this is the point? Actors often sit in a circle, barely moving, as if in rehearsal. At times they trip up in their lines, which are occasionally finished off by another or spoken in unison. Continue reading...