SOURCE: Hemming, Sarah. Review of Pericles. Financial Times (26 September 2003): 19.

In the following review, Hemming endorses Neil Bartlett's staging of Pericles at London's Lyric, Hammersmith, particularly noting the sparsely appointed stage which invited the audience to focus on the actors' fine performances.

At first sight, Neil Bartlett's design for his own production of Pericles looks startlingly sparse. Shakespeare's late romance zig-zags across the Mediterranean, yet Bartlett gives us just an empty monochrome and rather clinical room. But very soon the setting makes sense. Rather than try to give us everything, Bartlett gives us nothing, encouraging us to paint in the backdrop imaginatively—thus the staging can focus on the story, rather than becoming bogged down in circumstantial detail.

More importantly still, this austere setting allows the play's emotional story to resonate. The place could be a mental institution—a place where people broken by their misfortune reside. It could...