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London,
Kieron Quirke's rating
Reader rating
Dir: Mark Rosenblatt.
Cast: Kirsty Besterman, Philip Bird, Cornelius Booth, Jim Bywater, Louise Callaghan, Philip Cumbus, Leander Deeny, Craig Gazey, Alice Haig, Peter Hamilton Dayer, Adam Kay, Jennifer Kidd, Pippa Nixon, Jonathan Moore, Christopher Obi, Dale Rapley, Mark Rice-Oxley, Nicholas Shaw
Description: A new play by Jack Shepherd, set during the early reign of Queen Victoria. The Chartist William Lovett tries to play peacemaker between the forces of government and industry, against a background of rising militancy. Directed by Mark Rosenblatt.
Trains: Tube: Mansion House, BR: London Bridge 
Phone: 0207401 9919
Website: www.shakespeares-globe.org
True, tragic love: Will (Craig Gazey) and Lizzie (Louise Callaghan) provide the melodrama to bind the sprawling production
You want epic sweep, you got it. Jack Shepherd's rambling and rather wonderful history of the Victorian Chartist movement confirms, after the massive themes of Howard Brenton's In Extremis, that Dominic Dromgoole's Globe is a venue for new writing of special, grand-scale quality.
Rarely has the Globe's space been such a feeder for the imagination as in Mark Rosenblatt's production. The mock-Renaissance backdrop of the stage serves for taverns, streets and the upstairs-downstairs world of high Victorian society as we follow the movement's fight for wider suffrage.
The story is anything but focused - major characters pop up and disappear, and the action veers around Britain. Yet as fights spill into the pit, and as the Galleries become pulpits for violent debate, you don't feel the lack of a well-made play.
Rabble-rousing speeches (including those of Peter Hamilton Dyer's superbly noble William Lovett) and public hangings make the groundlings co-conspirators in the cause. Balladeers sing. Gloriously, we feel at the centre of a land seething with high idealism, on a brink between peaceful concession or violent revolution.
The parallel story of Louise Callaghan's golden-hearted scullery maid Lizzie is the egg that binds the mix. Working her way up from the streets of London, she averts rape by a hypocrite minister and finds true, tragic love with the charming bootboy.
It's a melodramatic sort of tale, and with all the righteous rhetoric and hissable villains, there are a few Hollywood moments that might irritate more sensitive palates. No matter. In this case, strong tastes make great theatre.
• Until 5 October, Information: 020 7401 9919, www.shakespeares-globe.org
Details are correct at the time of publication - please check with venue before booking.
