PATRICK MARMION: All's Well That Ends Well review

All's Well That Ends Well (Shakespeare's Globe, London)

Verdict: Delightful moral maze 

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All's Well is the sort of Shakespeare that's apt to cause moral panic among today's puritans. 

Imagine their horror... they're presented with an assertive young woman, Helen, who's rejected by surly toff Bertram when she reveals her love for him. But then she goes and blows our sympathy by tricking him into sleeping with her... without his consent.

And this, in the context of an army bullying subplot in which another young man - presented, to begin with, as Bertram's lover - is subjected to a mock execution as punishment for being boastful and cowardly.

The Globe's website shivers with dismay. It warns of 'sexual assault, physical violence, classism, misogyny and homophobia'. Yet they neglect to mention the play is great fun, features fine writing and rueful humour: 'If a hind would be mated by a lion, it must die for love.'

Director Chelsea Walker is clearly a name to watch. She has twigged that there's no need to take sides in this twisting dramatic jest. It's a tale not well measured by modern standards of acceptability.

Her production may start off looking like a Fellini film, with everyone in black suits and sunglasses, while a diva in a gold dress on a balcony intones a staccato chant. But Walker ensures it's never taken too seriously and remains a playful web of deceit and counter-deceit running from the top to bottom of Jacobean society.

Bug-eyed comic actor Richard Katz as the King of France is gravely ill at the start with a fistula (yuck, trust me). When he is cured by Ruby Bentall's precocious young Helen - the daughter of a famous physician - he rewards her by demanding that Bertram become her husband.

But wait! Rather than living happily ever after, Bertram (Kit Young) slopes off to war to avoid her... prompting her retaliation (sexual entrapment, involving a nun's habit and a lick of lipstick).

At first it's suggested that Bertram rejects Helen because he's gay. But this turns out to be an orientation of convenience, as he later seduces a young nymph.

And although William Robinson as his servant and erstwhile boyfriend Paroles could do with dialling down his own strenuous turn, he is in the end a victim of poetic justice.

Helped by the light-touch gravitas of Siobhan Redmond as Bertram's mother, Shakespeare's comedy is therefore revealed as a play of ingenious strategising that toys with moral dilemmas and is meant to delight, not disturb.

Besides, in this brisk, tongue-in-cheek, candlelit rendition, all's well... and ends very well.

People who have no love or understanding of folk and fairy tales shouldn't be allowed anywhere near them.

The Red Shoes (Swan Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon)

Verdict: Strictly slipshod  

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Regrettably, the Royal Shakespeare Company have decided to let Irish writer Nancy Harris loose on a dismal 'new version' of Hans Christian Andersen's Red Shoes, a sinister tale of redemption about a spoilt little orphan, Karen, cursed by a pair of longed-for ballet shoes.

Among the problems with Harris's script is a weakness for doggerel verse. Excruciating rhymes include one about what Karen's feet 'carry', and what they 'parry'.

But the crowning gaffe is when the vain and fatuous Prince tells Karen he has 'fabulous balls' (he means the dancing kind).

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Nor is there a worthy satirical target beyond Karen's foster parents (James Doherty as a leery Mancunian and Dianne Pilkington as a trashy Scouser), and their psychopathic son (Joseph Edwards), who eventually chops Karen's feet off.

Mostly, though, Karen is tormented by a child-catcher-like shoemaker (Sebastien Torkia) who embroiders Harris's writing with histrionics of his own. Nikki Cheung dances vigorously as Karen — though she's confined to a hodge-podge of interpretive moves. At least Marc Teitler's music adds sophistication.

The costumes are a mash-up of gothic and gender-fluid. But bizarrely, Kimberley Rampersad's direction robs Karen's footwear of its special status by allowing other characters to wear red shoes, too.

Most galling of all is Harris's pretence that her enlightened new version rejects moralistic happy endings — while supplying one of her own, demanding that we all 'dance our own dance'. I'll sit this one out, thanks.

[title of show] (Southwark Playhouse, London)

Verdict: Pleasantly innocuous

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Some will call it 'meta-theatre', others will say it's 'navel gazing'. Others still will claim it's 'up itself'.

Whatever anyone else might prefer to call it, this is another pleasantly innocuous example, about a couple of young men cobbling together a musical for a New York festival — and it won a coveted Tony Award nomination on Broadway in 2008.

To be honest, it left me craving something a little less... er, self-regarding.

But, in its favour, it's an undeniably bright and genial musical by numbers (aren't they all, I hear you cry!).

In it, the two slightly camp young men have just three weeks to write a show...about them writing a show in just three weeks.

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There is wry humour about life in New York reminiscent of TV's Seinfeld, accompanied by Jeff Bowen's jaunty songs which have an ad lib verve.

The boys sing about the agonies of inventing a plot and filling in an application form (there they get the title of the piece), while two women in their cast get to caterwaul about their rivalries.

Larky and upbeat as this all is, the characters are a little indistinct and unchallenged.

Songwriter Jeff (Thomas Oxley) is a mildly camp, dark-haired wannabe. Book writer Hunter Bell (Cahir O'Neill, covering for Jacob Fowler) is a mildly camp, blond wannabe.

They are joined by Abbie Budden as a sweet, yet brassily voiced chorus girl. And deadpan Mary Moore as an actor trying to give up theatre.

As they ponder their creative hopes and insecurities, Tom Chippendale rattles out the tunes on a keyboard, occasionally chipping in with tips.

And while it's supremely good natured on a budget set, costumes of washed-out cottons are draining on the eye.

Still it's an impressive production, at a pioneering venue which incubated Benjamin Button before its transfer to the West End and is soon to host the impressive true-crime, semi-musical Kenrex, which opened recently in Sheffield.

[title of show] runs at Southwark Playhouse until November 30.