Production 2006
Director Rupert Goold created an Arctic wilderness island with mariners in oilskins.
The play opened with a shipping forecast and a gauze showing a radio. Through the radio's speaker, the audience glimpsed the last moments on-board before the shipwrecking.
Projections of waves on moving curtains created atmospheric scene changes.
Patrick Stewart's Prospero wore furs and had delicate tattooed patterns running across his head, inspired by traditional Inuit designs.
Caliban (John Light) was a strong wild-man in shackles and Ariel (Julian Bleach) was a drifting black-robed figure with a ghostly white face. Ariel first appeared as a head emerging from a barrel in Prospero's log-cabin cell, and he later emerged from a whale carcass, dripping blood and bones.
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Review: The Tempest
Michael Billington, The Guardian, 10 August 2006
Something too rich and strange
Dominic Cavendish, The Daily Telegraph, 10 August 2006
Reviews: The Tempest
Maxwell Cooter and Pete Wood, WhatsOnStage, 1 March 2007
Review: The Tempest
Kate Bassett, The Independent, 13 August 2006
Photo by Manuel Harlan shows Patrick Stewart as Prospero and Mariah Gale as Miranda in the RSC's 2006 production of The Tempest © RSC