Royal Shakespeare Company

It's only October now, but I dare say the best theatre I'd seen this year, or in recent years for that matter, were the 2 plays by the RSC in Singapore this July. I went for "King Lear" on 19 July, and "The Seagull" on 22 July. It was an incredible feat that they were brought to Singapore at all, with a top-notch cast and production. This same cast and production will be performing in London end of this year, a long season for them.

But what magnificient dramas! Pages of script which seemed lifeless on paper sprung to spell-binding life on stage, without effort or artifice. Pages of monologue which seem like the most soppy, unreal melodrama in the case of Nina's character in The Seagull becomes hauntingly tragic when spoken by Romola Garai (pictured above). Stiffled sniffs all round the theatre. And Ian McKellan as Lear! Good God! The play, first performed in 1606, is almost exactly 400 years old, but damned if I'm ever going to give away all possessions to my children, if I had any, before I know well and good I'm going to die soon after. There are truths here as timeless as any from the bible. There is the English language here of the greatest density and dexterity. Sadly, these plays also make one soberingly clear just how impoverished the theatre scene in Singapore is, and what a long climb we have yet to make.

I wish I could be in London at year's end to catch these and other plays again...

Chup