Error of judgement

At some point last week the Guardian headlined the performance of Hamlet put on by the Globe Theatre in the refugee camp which persists outside Calais. I believe this to have been an error of judgement; the Globe theatre is a charity, albeit a theatrical one, and as such has no business in political grandstanding of this sort. Particularly when they are wrong, with my view being that the refugee camp should not be there and that one should do nothing beyond providing basic life support. Make the place into a palace and it will draw the million and one refugees (or economic migrants, as you will) who think that the streets of London are paved with gold. In the round, despite being no Tory and not much of a little Englander, I sign up to the Cameron line that these people need to be contained, managed and processed near to their point of departure, not encouraged to scale the fences of the Eurotunnel goods yard in Calais. Tragic though their situation may be.

To be fair to the Globe, this was not their venture. The venture belonged to an outfit called Good Chance - but it was their actors and actresses.

Digressing, I wonder whether the appointment of a new artistic director at the Globe, a director (rather directress) who was alleged in the pub to have practically made a boast of knowing nothing of Shakespeare, was another error of judgement.

Observations from the Guardian like 'particularly at the Globe where the World Shakespeare season demonstrated that Shakespeare really can be our contemporary when we don’t treat the plays as sacred literary texts but possibilities for performance' do not encourage me. Nor do snippets from the Kneehigh Theatre (where the new director earned her spurs) like '... Proudly, we now find ourselves celebrated as one of Britain's most exciting touring theatre companies. We create vigorous, popular theatre for a broad spectrum of audiences, using a multi-talented group of performers, directors, designers, sculptors, engineers, musicians and writers. We use a wide range of art forms and media as our ‘tool kit' to make new and accessible forms of theatre. A spontaneous sense of risk and adventure produces extraordinary dramatic results. Themes are universal and local, epic and domestic'.

The Globe is already quite good at song & dance and getting bums on seats. But are they keeping their eye on the Shakespearian ball?

PS: at least Past Master Brown, made a sensible contribution to the debate about managing the migration to come last week. Perhaps in the very same edition of the Guardian as headlined 'Hamlet goes to Calais'.