This latest production in the Shakespeare’s Globe season reimagines Shakespeare’s Cymbeline for a modern audience. But what have critics been saying about it? 
Financial Times: *** “The trouble is that one wonders — in what has already become a mantra during Emma Rice’s first season at its helm — what the hell it’s doing at the Globe.”
Broadway World: *** “The fact that the dance is the evening’s highlight is probably more of an indictment of Cymbeline than the production, but perhaps demonstrates that this well-intentioned updating hasn’t entirely succeeded.”
WhatsOnStage:*** “Maddy Hill grabs the opportunity with both hands, stamping across the stage, shoulders hunched, full of purpose. She has terrific presence and – unlike some of the cast – the gift of making the language both modern and clear.”
The Guardian: ** “Shakespeare may have been reclaimed but he hasn’t, in any meaningful way, been improved.”
Time Out: *** “Dunster’s Brit gangsters-style production is stupendously good fun, making full use of Rice’s relaxation of rules about period-accurate productions to unleash a loud, grimy, grime-soundtracked story of double-crossing lowlifes that actually makes surprising sense of ‘Cymbeline’s convoluted plot.”
The Arts Desk: “at heart this is a company show in the Globe tradition, and up there with the best in the way it tells a story so clearly and ends as it should poised between tears and laughter.”
The Times: ** “Matthew Dunster has changed the title of Cymbeline, but the narrative feels almost secondary to all the grime, rap and gangsta madness.”
The Stage: **** “this is exactly the sort of thing the Globe should be doing: irreverent, intelligent, diverse, accessible and welcoming theatre that actively engages with these plays and what they might say to an audience today.”
Evening Standard: **** “Reclaimed and then some, but that’s what Emma Rice’s ambitious and wide-ranging first season at the helm of the Globe has been all about, shaking up our sometimes safe and familiar preconceptions about Shakespeare and making us look afresh, often through female eyes.”
The Telegraph: ** “Yet such is ferocity of the pruning, in tandem with the grafting-on of contemporary speech and cod-Bardic verse, that I can’t see what this version is doing at Shakespeare’s Globe.”
Radio Times: ***** “Hill is more than equal to the role. Her Imogen is a force of nature but also sweet and very funny.”
London Theatre.co.uk: **** “an accessible and justified reclamation that will no doubt divide critics but intrigue even casual passers with a vision that’s as bold as its blaring soundtrack.”
Theatre Cat: “A perfect club night for modern Bards.”
Live Theatre UK:** “But the flaws of Cymbeline aren’t any less apparent in The Globe’s ‘Imogen’. What is has done, however, is to extinguish the virtues.”
Sitting in the Cheap Seats: *** “So is the play still a problem? Yes, the plot still weaves about and there’s still too much going on, but Dunster’s take certainly makes it more easily palatable for a modern audience.”
British Theatre Guide: “While its streetwise hoodies match the plot in one respect the production is decidedly quirky.”
Imogen plays at the Shakespeare’s Globe until the 16th October. For more information and to book tickets visit: http://imogen.shakespearesglobe.com/about-the-show/.