Stratford Festival Reviews

Isherwood writes a glowing review, much of it celebrating Lady Bracknell and Brian Bedford. "Without sacrificing a single of Lady Bracknell’s withering bons mots, he [Bedford] avoids the stridently arch and the obvious. A single word — “Found?” — spoken in a tone of hushed stupefaction sets the audience roaring..."

Although Millman is slightly critical of Brian Bedford, he closes with, " This is a delightful evening of a theater, a first-rate production of a beloved classic, and one of the last chances to see a living legend paint a stage as only he can."

Emsworth is a blogger and he's been attending Stratford for years. He wrote a glowing review and noted one of the stronger performance was by Mike Shara. "(We can’t help noting with some alarm the regularity with which the Shaw Festival’s best actors desert to Stratford...)

The Importance of Being Earnest has long been in danger of being written off as museum theatre.  In the right hands, however, it still has a both a delicious sparkle and an impressive kick -- and make no mistake, there are few hands better than these.

It gets everything right.

Bedford himself provides the coup de grace as a Lady Bracknell who knows when to be deathly serious and when to crack just the slightest of smiles. It’s a performance of breathtaking control, but the whole production is also that good.

When do we get to see Martha Henry's King Lear? Bedford's Bracknell is fine, his reading is not unique enough, nor is the idea of a man playing the part new enough...Ben Carlson and Mike Shara are the stars, however, and they are a delicious double act.