The Merchant of Venice
Royal Shakespeare Company
The Observer

In The Merchant of Venice (Other Place, Stratford), Patrick Stewart’s Shylock, an unemphatic and unaccented businessman, is the most convincing I have seen. In the trial scene he follows the play’s comic logic and cringes. Silently he begs mercy to Antonio; nods assent when commanded to become a Christian. I don’t know if John Barton intended this to be as distressing as I found it; perhaps his production, like this year’s Shrew, is concerned to expose the play’s unpleasantness.

The whole Shylock menage is authoritatively handled with a silkily tormenting Tubal (Raymond Westwell) and a silk-hatted one-man band of a Launcelot Gobbo (Hilton McRae)- like Harpo Marx given voice. Marjorie Bland’s Portia reacts beautifully to her suitors from a distance, but on closer acquaintance freezes over; John Nettles, however, effectively conquers his accustoms sneer as Bassanio.