| Performance Details | Venue: Friargate Theatre, York Dates: 5th - 9th December 2006 at 7.30pm with a matinee at 2pm on Saturday 9th December. Tickets: £4 - £7 (all Tuesday 5th tickets are £4) Box office: 01904 613 000 |
One of England’s most unpopular sovereigns,ÌýKing John will be getting a makeover this Autumn, when the York Shakespeare Project presents one of Shakespeare's lesser known plays. John, most remembered for the Magna Carta, or as a baddie in the tales of Robin Hood, will be seen in this play battling with a disputed crown, an overbearing mother and lots of arguing siblings. It just proves to show that even Kings have bad days! Indeed, in Shakespeare’s play, John is surrounded by critics, least of all his mother, Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine, who in her youth was one of the most beautiful and clever women in Europe. She is played by Jenny Carr, who teaches drama at Canon Lee School in York. Jenny says of Eleanor, "the trouble is, that as a woman, she is incredibly clever and intelligent, in a time where women had no say in day to day life. In fact, she’s surrounded by men, and she knows she could do a better job of ruling England than any of them. Richard had been the apple of her eye, and she thinks that John is too weak for the crown. There’s certainly no love lost between them both." | "Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine is surrounded by men, and she knows she could do a better job of ruling England than any of them" | | Jenny Carr |
The director, Jeremy Muldowney, has set the play in medieval times, when living was literally a matter of life and death, and this is illustrated in the play. Says Jeremy, "It did not matter where you were on the ladder of power, whether a serf or a king, life would be very uncertain. In those days, news was not spread as quickly as it is today via the internet, most people would not have realised who their king was, or what he looked like, least of all whether he was agreeing with the pope or not. "As for the relationship with his mother, I agree that Eleanor didn’t think very much of her younger son, but it would have been a hard act for John to follow in Richard’s footsteps. And Eleanor certainly wasn’t going to stop reminding John of this". About the York Shakespeare Project York Shakespeare Project was set up in April 2001 and they plan to perform all Shakespeare's plays in the city over the next 20 years and also provide a long-term cultural, educational and community resource. Up to now theyÌý have performed Richard III, The Taming of the Shrew, Comedy of Errors, Titus Andronicus, Love's Labour's Lost, an open-air Romeo and Juliet, The Two Gentlemen of Verona and A Midsummers Night's Dream. Ali Borthwick |
