Nuns, maids and cobbled together Shakespeare… it’s a comic delight

dailymail.co.uk :    While the RSC’s Macbeth gives us a new take on old sorrows, its Cardenio is an entirely new delight with, in places, an almost familiar voice.

This play is what the motoring trade would call ‘a bitfer’, having been cobbled together from various sources, one of which probably contained a fair amount of Shakespeare.

The setting is Andalucia in the 16th century, and the tale is one of morganatic love, disguises, some top flamenco music and leather hunting capes.

There are pretty maids, misguided fathers, genial rustics and a happy ending with real tears. I loved every minute of it.

How much is the Bard? I swear I heard him in some of the set-piece speeches, particularly from the lovelorn women. A yokel who says ‘I think his skull’s as empty as a sucked egg’ sounded like our boy. His influence can be scented most in the denouement.

Gregory Doran has done well not only to piece the text together but also in his direction, cooking up a Spain in which virgins are kept behind jail-like metal grilles yet are still seduced by lusty blades.