Review: ALL’S WELL THAT ENDS WELL at Sam Wanamaker Playhouse

In Walker’s production which has just opened at The Globe’s Sam Wanamaker Playhouse, Bertram Count of Roussillon (Kit Young) leaves behind his Countess mother (Siobhán Redmond), honour bound to replace his late father in attendance of the King of France (Richard Katz) who is purportedly ill and close to death. Helen (Ruby Bentall) who is under the Countess’ protection, is bereft at Bertram’s departure but follows him bearing a cure for the King’s ills, concocted and left in her care by her late physician father. Having successfully cured the King of his maladies, Helen is promised the husband of her choosing, but Bertram is mortified at being matched. He goes off to fight in an Italian campaign with his male companion Paroles (William Robinson) declaring before his departure that he’ll be a husband to Helen when she wears his ring and proves she carries his child. Needless to say, he departs still wearing his ring, and Helen a virgin after their wedding. Thereafter, various matters transpire and conspire to bring us to the ambiguous conclusion, that all’s well that ends well.

Firstly, the problem play monicker was attributed to the work, largely due to the heavy burden placed on audiences to suspend belief about the true nature of the confident and roguishly appealing leading male character Bertram. Secondly, creative interpretations can suffer a lack of veracity in delivering him, because it can be unclear whether he is a womanising, vacuous philanderer, or perhaps instead he is hiding that his close male friendship with Paroles, is of a sexual nature. Either way, in the play Bertram is initially disgusted by Helen’s declaration of love, but by the final scene seems filled with love, admiration and a desire to be a good husband and father to their unborn child.

In Walker’s version, in which she has assembled a coterie of committed actors, she very much concludes the latter interpretation with Bertram and Paroles sharing ‘a moment’ but (and here again is why the play presents difficulties) despite the overt inference, Shakespeare’s denouement requires that Paroles is rejected (via a concocted sub-plot involving a drum and a kidnapping) and Bertram conforms, confirming his love for previously rejected and disparaged Helen.

Irrespective of the inherent textual issues, the production has star appeal, sex appeal, crisply realised comedy in spades — especially from Siobhan Redmond and Ruby Benthall — and the entire company acquit themselves with a great deal of style and aplomb in the beautifully intimate candlelit environs, not least by allowing the dialogue to flow with minimal affectation.

At Sam Wannamaker Playhouse until 4 January.