23/08/23
Gilded Balloon Patter House (Big Yin), Chambers Street, Edinburgh
The story of Shakespeare’s younger daughter, Judith, is one that I know very little about, so Upstart! seems the perfect opportunity to learn more – though I have to say this is much more entertaining than your average history lesson. It’s a sprightly and engaging piece about a woman who is constantly denied the opportunity to be her true self, never allowed to explore her own creativity.
When we first meet her, she’s elderly Judith (Susannah May), who has long outlived her famous father, her husband and even her three children. She now delights in spreading mischievous falsehoods of Shakespeare’s final days to his over-persistent fans, but still finds time to tell us her story.
In flashback we meet the younger Judith (Rachel Kitts), her long-suffering mother, Anne (Aisling Groves-McKeown), her older sister, Susanna (Becky Sanneh), and of course, Will himself (Luke Millard), the successful young playwright spending far too much time in that London, and carrying on with the lady he will later write sonnets about. We learn too of young Judith’s ill-fated relationship with Tom Quiney (Angus Battycharya), her first love, whom she eventually marries against her father’s wishes.
Written by Mary Jane Schaefer, this intriguing tale illustrates how Judith is denied pretty much everything she ever wants – she never even learns to write – and how she always feels that she exists in the shadow of her twin brother, Hamnet, who died of a fever when the pair were only little. Judith cannot rid herself of the powerful conviction that her father would have preferred it if she had died in her brother’s place.
This is a complicated tale and the eight-strong cast are compelled to inhabit a variety of roles, which they do admirably, switching costumes and handling the many scene changes with considerable skill, especially impressive on such a small stage. The dialogue feels authentic to the era and there are some short musical interludes, songs of the ‘hey nonny no’ persuasion, which are pleasant distractions as tables and stools are rearranged. Director Alexandra Spence-Jones keeps everything moving along at a brisk pace, right up to the play’s ironic conclusion.
I leave the venue feeling I’ve been informed and entertained. Result.
4 stars
Philip Caveney
Bouquets & Brickbats 
Phil
I wonder if the title ‘upstart’ was a reference to the excellent BBC satire, ‘Upstart Crow’, written by Ben Elton and allegedly the description of the Bard coined by Sir Robert Greene, played in the show by the marvellous Mark Heap.
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Yes, says the playwright. I love that program and consider it to have much more of the authentic feel of his life than many of the more serious or clever approaches. “Upstart!” in the title of my play indicates that we’re going to have fun here, not just drag through a drama. It also stresses that Judith was like her father in many ways. A lot of meaning for one word to take on, but how could I resist it?
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