You’ve probably heard of Harrods. You might not have heard of St. Saviour’s Church, which is just behind the swish department store in Knightsbridge. The church is the home of the Intermission Youth Theatre group, and this week a few of us visited to see their modern adaptation of Shakespeare’s ‘The Taming of the Shrew’, the aptly named, ‘Taming Who?’
The Taming of the Shrew is a comedy, and explores the roles of men and women in relationships. As you might expect, we were keen to see how the cast provided their own take on the story, especially in our modern society. A modern day Shakespeare would be impressed with the twist they have added at the very end of the piece.
It’s an incredibly good production, with almost non-stop humour and believable friendships and relationships between the characters. The young actors are extremely talented and it is obvious that they have worked hard to decipher the Shakespearian text and make it their own, combining Elizabethan text with modern street slang. ‘The Taming of the Shrew’ is one of Shakespeare’s more complicated plays, but the high standard of acting made the differentiation between the characters and plots extremely easy to follow. The Intermission Youth Theatre is definitely one to watch.
A discussion after the play highlighted some of the issues from Shakespeare’s text – how should men and women treat each other? What does a healthy relationship look like? It was great to see young people often from under-privileged backgrounds, talking so positively about what they’ve taken away from the experience.
Kady Potter and Kate Lennon
Taming Who? runs Wed – Sat from 29th Oct to 22nd Nov 2014 starting at 7:30pm
Intermission Theatre, St Saviour’s Church, Walton Place, London, SW3 1SA
£15 (concessions available)
www.iyt.org.uk
