A modern twist on a ‘difficult’ comedy

All’s Well That End’s Well is one of Shakespeare’s lesser known comedies and the director of a new production thinks she knows why.

While many are fearful to tamper with the great bard’s works, Barbara Jones has completely adapted the play, she says, to appeal to modern audiences.

While careful to retain the beauty and elegance of Shakespeare’s language, she has turned some of the relationships on their heads.

In its original form, Helena, the daughter of a physician, traps the new Count of Rossillion, Bertram into marriage. He rejects her rudely, imposing impossible conditions before he’ll be a true husband, and runs away to war.

She follows him, fulfills the conditions by a cunning trick, then follows him home to confront him and claim him as her husband in fact as well as name, which he accepts. This doesn’t sit too well with Jones and here’s why...

You have extensively adapted the script — how and why?

What was wrong with the Shakespeare as written? All’s Well That Ends Well in it’s original form has a plot that doesn’t make a lot of sense to modern audiences. Why would anyone bother pursuing such a spineless twerp as Berttram? So I changed it all around.

Helena becomes a spoiled brat who wants Bertram simply because she can’t have him.

Bertram becomes a naive and immature youth without a good male role model who doesn’t know how to behave with women.

The authority figures around him are women — I have changed the King to the Queen of France, and the Duke of Florence is a female military leader (in sequins, yet); the French Lords alongside whom Bertram fights are women, and even his companion Parolles is a disreputable girl.

He doesn’t really stand a chance, except... this is Shakespeare so everyone who deserves it gets their comeuppance by trick or plot, and All Ends Well, or seems to... I have left it ambiguous at the end — let the audience decide!

Would you consider this version to be funnier for modern audiences?

I have cut out all the impenetrable Jacobean in-jokes that had ‘em rolling in the aisles in 1605, whilst adding quite a bit of humour of my own — sorry, Will — but he did mean it to be a comedy and, after working for twenty years with the Not The Um Um boys, I found the opportunities to be irresistible. The language is still Shakespeare’s but I’ve smoothed it all out to become a shorter, funnier show just right for a summer evening — we’ll all be back out in the bar just after 10pm.

Who’s in the cast?

Some new to the Daylesford boards — Arielle DeSilva, Claudia Hall, Nic Trollope and Latisha Lister. Some old favourites — Matt Wedlich, Liz Knight, Paige Hallett, Laura Bardgett, Deborah Smith-Joell, Cotty Outerbridge, Ben Winfield and Evelyn MacGregor. One well-welcomed returnee - Nick Fagundo in his whizzing wheelchair.

What are the themes?

Running away doesn’t solve it. Plots backfire, but sometimes they don’t. Sex can be complicated. Be very, very careful what you wish for. It’s faster on wheels. Leopards rule. These will make sense when you come to see it, it’s a show anybody can enjoy — all ages from the young to the less-young, all genders from women through to men, and everyone from aficionados of ‘The Bard’ to blank verse despairers — you don’t even have to listen to the words to laugh at the visual comedy.

Why did you choose this play for the BMDS Summer Shakespeare?

I’ve already directed or performed in a number of his plays such as The Tempest, As You Like It, Measure for Measure, Much Ado About Nothing and The Merry Wives of Windsor. I think The Comedy of Errors is anything but comic; A Midsummer Night’s Dream doesn’t appeal (fairies? me?) and The Taming of the Shrew is too gender-specific (I like to mix it up), so I finally settled on All’s Well — I like a challenge and, as a physician, the fact that Helena gets Bertram as her reward for curing the Queen’s illness is something I can understand — doctor’s fees clearly haven’t gone down in the past four hundred years.

And what about the headline?

For a play that is seldom performed and is known as one of Shakespeare’s ‘difficult’ comedies (but that was before I got my hands on it... ) it is something of a coincidence that the Royal Shakespeare Company are performing it as part of their summer season in Stratford Upon Avon this summer. They’ve even stolen my opening night — Friday July 19 — I wonder who told them? But I bet mine will be much, much funnier.

The play doesn’t particularly call for an outdoor staging — many scenes are set indoors — so it will be performed in the cool (the A/C works) and dry (we’ve fixed the roof leak) BMDS Daylesford Theatre on July 19, 20 and 23 to 27, starting at 8pm. No soggy costumes and uncomfortable bleachers this year!