Seymour Mattews   Lucentio
Andrew Robertson   Tranio
Richard Kane   Biondello
Nigel Hawthorne   Baptista
Ian Trigger   Gremio
Gavin Reed   Hortensio
Denise Coffey   Bianca
Joanna Wake   Katherina
Trevor Peacock   Petruchio
Alun Lewis   Grumio
Joan Heal   Curtis
Terry Scully   Pedant
Paul Brooke   Vincentio
Julia McCarthy   Widow
Barbara Courtney   Servant
David Wynn   Servant

Director   Frank Dunlop



The Shrew, Young Vic

Michael Billington, Guardian, May 6 1972

I EXPECT before long to see a Women's Lib "Taming of the Shrew" in which Petruchio is a loutish male chauvinist pig, Kate an ingenious diplomat artfully biding her time and the final speech of submission is played in a vein of mocking irony. But you won't find any of this in Frank Dunlop's enjoyable knockabout version which returns to the Young Vic repertory almost entirely re-cast: this puts the emphasis on straightforward farcical fun rather than on the play's plug for male supremacy. Eighteen months ago, when I first saw it, it had plenty of speed but no visible destination: now it's a marvellously relaxed, genial, festive production.

It retains the original framing device whereby Sly becomes not a Warwickshire tinker but a recalcitrant member of the Young Vic audience forced to take over as the Pedant at short notice. But it's a sign of the production's radical improvement that whereas before this made little sense (how could a drunken spectator slip so easily into a crucial character-part?) it now becomes an excuse for a commen on the narcissistic vanity of the untutored amateur.

Trevor Peacock may not have Jim Dale's whirlwind energy as Petruchio but he exudes the right bumptious amour-propre: Joanna Wake is a nimble Kate justifiably aggrieved at the favours bestowed on her spoilt brat of a sister, endowed by Denise Coffey with a splendidly uninfectious giggle; and Richard Kane and Nicky Henson ensure the lower orders get the best of the comic business. I've seen subtler "Shrews" than this; but there was an audible gasp of amazement from the young audience, when Kate slapped Petruchio resoundingly across the chops. And you can't ask for more involvement than that.


Spanish award for Young Vic
Times, March 9 1972
The Young Vic company have just been awarded the prize for the best foreign theatrical company to perform in Spain in 1971. The award, presented anually by the theatre critics of Madrid, was won by the Young Vic for their production of The Taming of the Shrew, directed by Frank Dunlop, which opened the Madrid Festival last October. Other companies which appeared there included the Comedie-Francaise, and leading theatrical companies from Germany, Italy, Rumania, Portugal, Spain and Czechoslovakia.