Love's Labour's Lost

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by William Shakespeare

  • Director: Dominic Dromgoole
  • Designer: Jonathan Fensom
  • Composer: Claire van Kampen

Self-denial is in fashion at the court of Navarre where the young King and three of his courtiers solemnly forswear all pleasures in favour of serious study. But the Princess of France and her all-too-lovely entourage have other ideas and it isn’t long before young love, with its glad eyes, hesitations and embarrassments, has broken every self-imposed rule of the all-male ‘academe’.

Shakespeare's boisterous send-up of all those who try to turn their back on life, is a festive parade of every weapon in the youthful playwright's comic arsenal: from excruciating cross-purposes and impersonations, to drunkenness, bust-ups and pratfalls. Even more, it is a joyful banquet of language, groaning with puns, rhymes, bizarre syntax, grotesque coinages and parodies. This heady combination enjoys its first outing at the Globe this season.

Cast
Rosaline: Gemma Arterton
Sir Nathaniel: John Bett
Costard: Joe Caffrey
Katherine: Oona Chaplin
Moth: Seroca Davis
Holofernes: Christopher Godwin
Berowne: Trystan Gravelle
Ferdinand King of Navarre: Kobna Holdbrook-Smith
Maria: Cush Jumbo
Longaville: William Mannering
Dumaine: David Oakes
Jaquenetta: Rhiannon Oliver
Boyet: Paul Rider
Princess of France: Michelle Terry
Dull: Andrew Vincent
Don Armado: Timothy Walker

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