Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.“Would he had blotted a thousand!” wrote Ben Jonson of his contemporary Shakespeare, wishing he had rewritten many of his lines. Those who agree would probably locate lots of them in the early scenes of Pericles. Scholars now attribute those passages to a probable collaborator, George Wilkins, which makes this lumpy play based on a classical source, with its multiple Mediterranean settings plus sea scenes, a brave choice for co-artistic director Tamara Harvey’s directorial debut at the RSC.It’s a tale of wonder, of lost identity, Odyssean wanderings, coincidence, peril and perfidy. The fairytale element is evident from the start, when Pericles of Tyre must solve a riddle to win the hand of a fair princess of Antioch. If he has a fault, it is a weakness for the ladies, but his demeanour is always courtly, in contrast to the earthier parts of the text. King Antiochus (Felix Hayes) means to kill his daughter’s suitors whether they solve the riddle or not, so Pericles slips off, travelling to Tarsus where he relieves a famine.Pericles has left faithful counsellor Helicanus (Philip Bird, someone has to do the dull roles) in charge, but every attempt to return to Tyre is thwarted by tempests and rough seas. Set designer Jonathan Fensom has suspended lines of ropes over and behind the stage to suggest a ship’s rigging; this is not quite phoning it in, but it is certainly minimalist. The ropes then become choppy waves as the hero washes up at Pentapolis stripped of everything, where he is helped to spruce up by three comedy fishermen (Miles Barrow, Sam Parks and Hayes again).There is plenty of doubling to add to the confusion, though some of it is inspired: Jacqueline Boatswain as a virginal priestess of Diana and a brothel-keeper in Mytilene, for example. Parks is a soft-hearted assassin as well as a fisherman, Barrow an opportunist thug in the bawdyhouse. It helps that the costumes (by Kinnetia Isidore) are colour-coded for each city: red robes with a suggestion of the exotic for Pentapolis, green floaty garments for plant-minded Ephesus, Mytileneans in blue. I could have done without the bouts of interpretative dance, but I can always do without interpretative dance.Alfred Enoch is an agile, clear-speaking Pericles anchoring the mayhem, movingly suggesting how the years change him into a sadder, wearier creature. Pericles, with its fleeting elements of later, more fully achieved plays such as The Tempest and A Winter’s Tale, is a fascinating interim piece.★★★☆☆To September 21, rsc.org.uk
