Birmingham Post
"Colin George is a magician. With a couple of sentences, he can evoke characters who reverberate across the stage leaving in their intensity an indelible impression.
In his recent RSC Fringe piece, 'The Actor', he gave us an ageing Russian actor dreaming of past triumphs.
The piece was a great success and obviously Mr George, in a similar way to this reviewer worships the gods of the theatre.
They certainly gave him inspiration when, in My Son - Will!, he came to develop William Shakespeare's father, the central character in this fascinating one man performance, which is full of laughter and historical detail, yet can move you to tears.
Shakespeare senior has been searching for his son for hundreds of years along with Chekhov's father. Both men apparantly failed initially to comprehend the genius evinced by their dazzling offspring.
Dressed in Macready's waistcoat, Henry Irving's bow tie and Kenneth Branagh's cast-off trainers, this actor evokes the brilliance, horrors and joys of 17th century London, fleshing out its actors, courtesans and grandees in a city encrusted with filth and brilliance.
His marriage to Mary Arden, led John Shakespeare into a brush with Elizabethan anti-popery factions. We hear how the Earl of Leicester 'could cause suffering'. But we are reminded continually that his son Will is the only reason for this ghostly vagabondage.
Sprinkling the text with delicious clips from the plays, Mr George sets before us a moving account of a life 'although Will was only one of my sons', and its consequences. My Son - Will! is finally a performance piece that should be witnessed by anyone for whom the magnificence of Shakespeare has provided inspiration."
Richard Edmonds
Richard Edmonds writes for the Birmingham Post, a leading newspaper which covers all the performances of the Royal Shakespeare Company during their Stratford season. He wrote the above having seen Colin George's appearance in "My Son - Will!" at the prestigious Swan Theatre in August 1998
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