The Winter’s Tale
Harrogate Theatre/Touring
4/5

CRAMMED with clogs, country dancing and live music, there’s little doubt that Northern Broadsides is responsible for this staging of The Winter’s Tale.

Considered by some critics to be one of Shakespeare’s “problem plays” because of its shifts in tone from dark to light, its first half focuses on King Leontes’s jealous, wrongful condemnation of his wife Hermione as an adulterer while the second is dominated by a comedic mixture of disguises and a sheep-shearing festival — Sheep Fest 2015, as advertised on a poster.

The play opens on New Year’s Eve 1999, with a yuppie-suited King Leontes (director Conrad Nelson) in celebratory mood as projected fireworks flash above his head.

But in the second half the action moves back to to the 1960s, with festival-goers dressed in sheepskin jerkins while being entertained by a cod-Bob Dylan busker, and then progresses forward to the present day.

The eccentricities in stylistic continuity are embraced by Dawn Allsopp in her simple design, with a statue being animated and a flesh-eating bear looming out of projected storm clouds.

Like a horror remake of Teletubbies, these temporal shifts nonetheless have their own logic. The moments of proto-magic realism also serve to throw into stark relief the darkness of the opening scenes and the shattered optimism of the new millennium.

It’s in this darkness that Nelson shines as Leontes, with his delivery increasingly subdued and his body language tense as his revelry turns to unfounded jealousy. Delivering brief soliloquies while separated from other characters by lighting transitions, his troubled psyche is convincingly conveyed.

If Hannah Barrie doesn’t always satisfy as the virtuous Hermione, then Ruth Alexander’s Paulina is believable as a noblewoman with conflicted loyalties and Mike Hugo as the busking vagabond Autolycus is a joy to watch.

These performances, and the actors’ belief in the play’s magic, make this yet another successful addition to the Northern Broadsides repertoire.

Tours until November 28, details: northern-broadsides.co.uk

Review by Susan Darlington