ShakespeaRe-Told, Episode 3: The Taming of the Shrew
2005: David Richards
This is one of a sequence of Shakespeare plays retold and reimagined with modern language and modern situations. Of the set of four plays (the others being Much Ado About Nothing, Macbeth, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream), it’s probably not the weakest, but it’s not the best either. Parents or teachers should definitely exercise caution here, though, since it goes rather further into some issues of sexuality than many would like, and also employs a fair amount of crude language and corresponding gestures.
In this version, Katherine Minola is a powerful member of Parliament, but neurotic, impatient, and almost universally feared, being prone to ferocious (and crude) tantrums on air and in person. Her sister Bianca is a super-model, with a rather libertine lifestyle, superficially sweet to everyone but self-absorbed under the surface.
The circularity of the production is illustrated by the fact that the Petruchio character (who shows up at the wedding in women’s garb) liberally quotes Shakespeare (including The Taming of the Shrew). Katherine’s father is scarcely heard of, but her mother appears on the scene, played by none other than Twiggy — herself one of the first supermodels of the 1960s.
Barman: David Weber
Bianca Minola: Jaime Murray
Elaine: Kate Russell-Smith
French Waiter: Yves Aubert
Harry Kavanagh: Stephen Tompkinson
Italian Lady : Addoloraca Romano
John Naps: Simon Chandler
Journalist: Samuel Oatley
Katherine Minola: Shirley Henderson
Lawyer: Kish Sharma
Lucentio: Santiago Cabrera
Mrs Minola : Twiggy
Petruchio: Rufus Sewell
Scary Yob: Paul McNeilly
Speaker: Geoffrey Whitehead
Tim Agnew: David Mitchell
Tranio: Federico Zanni
Translator: Peter Kelly
Vicar: Bruce Mackinnon
Vincentio Bentivoli: Alex Giannini