REVIEW – Excellent modernised Merchant of Venice at Birmingham REP earned its standing ovation

REVIEW – Excellent modernised Merchant of Venice at Birmingham REP earned its standing ovation

RIGHT from schooldays, of all Shakespeare’s plays, I’ve never felt comfortable with ‘A Merchant of Venice’ because of the villainous way Shylock the Jewish moneylender is treated. Obviously, Brigid Larmour and Tracy-Ann Oberman – who have adapted Shakespeare’s original play into their ‘The Merchant of Venice 1936’ – felt the same – they turn the tables and show the main protagonists as nasty antisemites. It is as much a re-imagining as it is a r…