Less giddy than Shakespeare in Love, less raucous than Upstart Crow, Lauren Gunderson’s generous-hearted comedy enjoyably imagines the rocky publication of the First Folio, which rescued Shakespeare’s plays for posterity. Written in 2017, its European premiere aptly celebrates the Folio’s 400th anniversary.
We begin in the pub, as ageing lions of the stage sigh into their tankards. It’s three years since Shakespeare died, and his former colleagues John Heminges and Henry Condell fret that youngsters with poor texts and little talent already mangle his works. Shakespeare’s star player, Richard Burbage, knows everything by heart (“that’s the only way you get to tell everyone else what to do”) but when he dies, the friends realise that the words might fade with him. As Heminges warns: “Publish – or vanish.”
It’s a risky project: “Half the country can’t read,” grumbles Heminges, “the other half can’t pay.” They battle foul papers and fading memories to assemble the scattered texts. Despite cantankerous printers and with the aid of Tomi Ogbaro’s earnest scribe, who secretly copied his favourite texts, the mighty book comes together.
