Shylock

The Guildhall, Bury St Edmunds

Gareth Armstrong's one-man show is sometimes hard-hitting yet also very humorous and often tongue in cheek.

Taking the delicate subject of anti-Semitism and delving into history, Armstrong was able to draw out the harsh reality of such attitudes. He did this often in a flippant manner but this probably brought it home more graphically.

He looked at the role of Tubal in Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice and how those eight lines in the role played such an important part in the production. He emphasized the point of 'the importance of being unimportant'. Armstrong strove successfully to get into the minds of Tubal and Shylock and how this Jewish character was despised.

There were lots of historical facts thrown in, like when Shakespeare performed The Merchant of Venice at The Globe he played the gaoler although the role had no lines.