"She used to be a free spirit, the kind of girl who ate raw chillies for a bet, who did her grocery shopping in Chinatown, who had lost weekends in Soho and followed her heart..." And then she started MAVS.

Sugar Coating The Bard

"Shakespeare is not a bitter pill that must be sugared with fun and excitement. He is the master of excitement himself, but how are we ever to know if we never get to taste the undoctored substance?" ~ Harriet Walter

Words of wisdom that perhaps Rupert Goold should have taken heed of before embarking on The Merchant of Venice with the RSC. As a theatre-goer there is little I like less than being patronised by the use of generalised visual concepts and gimmicks as a substitute for words. By no means a Shakespeare Fundamentalist, I love a fresh and quirky concept as much as the next, but only when it is rooted firmly in the text, rather than in the mind of a director forcing it to wind its choking, contriving vines around the words, the story, and the poor, unfortunate actors.

This is nothing Charles Spencer hasn't already said:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/theatre/theatre-reviews/8525424/The-Merchant-of-Venice-Royal-Shakespeare-Theatre-Stratford-upon-Avon-review.html