{"id":656953,"date":"2026-06-25T05:10:20","date_gmt":"2026-06-25T05:10:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/656953\/"},"modified":"2026-06-25T05:10:20","modified_gmt":"2026-06-25T05:10:20","slug":"venus-adonis-review-simon-russell-beale-narrates-cheeky-tale-of-puppet-passion-theatre","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/656953\/","title":{"rendered":"Venus & Adonis review \u2013 Simon Russell Beale narrates cheeky tale of puppet passion | Theatre"},"content":{"rendered":"

Love comes with strings attached in Greg Doran\u2019s tragic romance. First performed 22 years ago<\/a>, this enchanting production of Shakespeare\u2019s great poem of unrequited love is now tenderly narrated by Simon Russell Beale. With masterful puppetry and a playful air of seduction, there\u2019s no wonder this conjuring of Venus\u2019s pursuit of the handsome Adonis has had so many lives. Like love \u2013 and heartbreak \u2013 its magic is timeless.<\/p>\n

No breath is wasted with these cheeky puppets, wooden in material only, designed and created by Lyndie Wright<\/a>. A raunchy Venus weeps and begs as the gorgeous, occasionally petulant Adonis rejects her advances, more interested in hunting than in love. Venus moves with such ease, you hardly see the team of puppeteers holding her arms as she hurls herself down at Adonis\u2019s feet, or curling her legs as she wallows in self pity. The five puppeteers swim around their characters, handing over control of a head and taking up a hand with surgical skill. Marionettes, shadow, rod, Bunraku and other puppets are used to build this ethereal world of miniature beauty \u2013 plus the exquisite ugliness of one angry, snuffly boar.<\/p>\n

Exquisitely ugly \u2026 Venus & Adonis. Photograph: Lucy Barriball<\/p>\n

Wit is at the forefront of Doran\u2019s detailed direction: it\u2019s in the playful pat of a horse\u2019s rump, the brief resting of a hare on an audience member\u2019s head, and the moment Nick Lee\u2019s live guitar comes to an abrupt, knowing halt as Adonis stops Venus\u2019s hand from sliding any further up his perfectly muscled leg. Lee\u2019s select melodies heighten these moments of humour and cast light on the tragedy, as Venus veers from floating with ecstasy to dancing with death on Robert Jones\u2019s golden, fringed set \u2013 which hides a secret of its own.<\/p>\n

Reading from a seat by the side of the stage, Beale holds each phrase with care: now wise, now funny, now sharp. Tear your eyes from the stage for a moment and you might catch him mirroring the puppets by holding a lovestruck hand to his heart. \u201cGood queen,\u201d he says, catching the eye of Venus who looks up from her reluctant lover, \u201cit will not be.\u201d But who among us hasn\u2019t been advised to let go of love, only to double down and be left with nothing but a throbbing heart?<\/p>\n

At the Barbican, London<\/a>, until 27 June. Then at York Theatre Royal<\/a>, 30 June-1 July<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Love comes with strings attached in Greg Doran\u2019s tragic romance. First performed 22 years ago, this enchanting production…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":656954,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[96,59,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-656953","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-entertainment","tag-gb","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/656953","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=656953"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/656953\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/656954"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=656953"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=656953"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=656953"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}