COMPANY stalwart Conrad Nelson is both directing and performing in a Northern Broadsides production for the first time.

What's more, as well as taking the role of Leontes in the Halifax troupe's touring show, he has written the music too for his "daringly theatrical and heartbreakingly human new staging" of The Winter's Tale, Shakespeare's tale of reconciliation, love and forgiveness.

The Broadsides production has been created in partnership with Harrogate Theatre, where the national press night will be held tomorrow night, in advance of a tour until November 28, for which Conrad is joined in the leading roles by Hannah Barrie as Hermione, Vanessa Schofield as Perdita, Andy Cryer as Camillo and Adam Barlow as Clown.

In Nelson's new interpretation, the play opens on New Year’s Eve in 1999 as the Millennium bells ring out with hope for the new century, but an ominous note underscores these festivities, which are plunged into darkness by King Leontes. Seized by sudden, irrational jealousy, the king falsely accuses his pregnant queen, Hermione, of infidelity with his closest friend, who flees without answering the accusation.

Leontes then proclaims his newborn daughter a bastard and condemns the innocent to death, but the child, Perdita, survives. What follows is a beautiful and beguiling love story, where the cold hand of winter gives way to the brightness and vibrancy of spring.

 

York Press:

Actor-director Conrad Nelson as Leontes in The Winter's Tale. Picture: Nobby Clark

Not only are Northern Broadsides staging The Winter's Tale for the first time in the West Yorkshire company's 23-year history, but also Conrad is returning to the stage after focusing on directing and composing works since playing Iago to Shakespeare debutant Lenny Henry's Othello in 2009.

"The Winter's Tale has got a reputation as a problem play but it's only a problem play until you look at the problem," says Conrad. "It's because it has duality in its setting, but essentially it feels like a modern play that's a bit quirky.

"What you do is embrace it; you say, 'these are the facts of the play; this is what it does'. You either swallow it and see the glass as half full or you say it's very difficult."

Conrad plumps for the former. "You get full value with this play because there's the jolly start with the party, then it disintegrates pretty quickly after that and you get darkness, comedy and the touching ending, with the reconciliation," he says. "So you get a bit of everything and hopefully you can enjoy all sides of it," he says

Explaining the decision to move Shakespeare's play to the eve of the new Millennium, Conrad continues: "The reason for doing that is to have the optimism of the future and reflection on the past, so you have that fulcrum, where you reflect and you go forward, and at the end of 1999, that fulcrum was even bigger."

You must play the play no matter how uncomfortable that may be, Conrad argues. "You just have to accept that's how it's written. If it's a problem to ask a lot of an audience, then we're in trouble, because we want to say, 'this is an adventure, hang on and go with the ride'."

Northern Broadsides' The Winter's Tale runs at Harrogate Theatre until Saturday at 7.30pm nightly plus a 2.30pm Saturday matinee; box office, 01423 502116 or harrogatetheatre.co.uk. The September 29 to November 28 tour will visit the Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, from October 20 to 24; 01723 370541 or sjt.uk.com