The Herbal Bed

Titchfield Festival Theatre

Peter Whelan's 1996 play is about a 1613 case of slander involving Shakespeare's daughter, Susanna (Jenny Bradshaw).

Hannah Wood's direction gives a good sense of time's changing, the golden age's lustre beginning to fade, the shadow of Puritanism spreading - as Chris Lawrence's costume design shows in the contrasting garb of the gorgeously frocked Bishop of Worcester (Roger Toyel/BenjaminO'Shaughnessy) and the monochromatic Vicar-General (Lawrence Lloyd) - with just a few ne'er-do-wells like the villain of this piece, Jack Lane (an enjoyable performance by Ben Smart), out for non puritanical excitement.

Susannah is married to the principled doctor John Hall (Sean Harris, on debut), happy to learn and help tend and mix the herbs, but harbouring an affection for handsome haberdasher Rafe (Sam Goodall), letting her hair down just once, which leads to Lane's scurrilous drunken remarks.

Concerned about her ailing father, Susanna must depend on the support of her sorely tried husband, and servant Hester (Stacy Walkden expresses the complicated emotions of this character well).

Ham Quentin