SOURCE: Billington, Michael. “The Bright Side of the Park.” The Guardian (Manchester) (17 April 1987): 16.

In the following review, Billington explores director Barry Kyle's production of Hyde Park at the Swan Theatre as a successful evocation of several literary periods: the Edwardian era of the Bloomsbury group, the witty Restoration, and the class-conscious Caroline age.

Barry Kyle's delightful production of James Shirley's Hyde Park at Stratford's Swan Theatre proves several things. One is that there is pleasure to be had from discovering a neglected work that is a fascinating social document rather than a blazing masterpiece. Another is that the Swan has really come of age now that a director feels free to update the action of a play by, in this case, three centuries.

Shirley's play, written in 1632, forms a missing link between the sweet melancholy of Shakespearean comedy and the sexual realism of the Restoration world. Its nominal...