The Guardian, 9 November 2015

The inaugural year-long season of the Kenneth Branagh Theatre Company officially opened to the critics last weekend, with a mammoth press day comprising three productions. Branagh co-directs 'The Winter’s Tale', in which he plays the obsessive king Leontes and shares the stage with Judi Dench. He also takes a role in 'Harlequinade', a rare revival of Terence Rattigan’s comedy about the travails of a theatre company (who happen to be putting on 'The Winter’s Tale'). The cast includes Zoë Wanamaker who also appears in Rattigan’s one-woman play 'All on Her Own' as a prelude to 'Harlequinade'.

The Winter’s Tale

Michael Billington, the Guardian:
This feels like a company venture rather than an actor-manager ego-trip […] Although this production ends, unfashionably, in unequivocal forgiveness, it is not afraid to hint at the darker elements in Shakespeare’s fable […] Branagh and Dench are surrounded by a first-rate team. […] You go to see the stars and, in the words of a Sondheim song, in comes company.

Ann Treneman, the Times:
'The Winter’s Tale' opens as if it was Dickens. There is a Christmas tree, everyone is wearing heavy Victoriana. It feels borderline Nutcracker, with bows, gussets, endless velvet. There is ice skating and snow is falling. But we know it is not Dickens or Nutcracker because we can see Kenneth Branagh and Judi Dench on stage and we know this is the Bard with bells on, albeit jingly ones.

Paul Taylor, the Independent:
Branagh is entirely persuasive as a monarch who semi-wilfully tears apart his family. He lets you see that Leontes is a piercing exile in his own country, self-banished from everything he valued and loved. Except for Judi Dench’s inspired Paulina […] With those husky tones that can impart a note of witty asperity to radiant generosity and vice versa, Dench is ideal casting for this character who seems to be in cahoots with Shakespeare.

Michael Coveney, What’s On Stage:
Leontes is not an obvious Branagh role. But I remember thinking the same of his Coriolanus at Chichester, and he surprised me there, too. His Volumnia was Judi Dench, and Paulina is a similar sort of intervening character; Dench brings all her deeply felt wisdom and humanity to bear on the role […] You won’t see a better version [of 'The Winter’s Tale'] in terms of heart, bones and lucidity.

Matt Trueman, Variety:
As Leontes, Branagh unravels like a snagged woolly jumper. Each bit of bad news – Polixenes’ escape, his son’s death – literally knocks him sideways. He drops to his knees with word of his wife’s passing, and hobbles off clutching his midriff and moaning, as if gripped by acute appendicitis […] Too often, though, the actor’s vanity becomes visible, and key handovers and reconciliations are played out in slow motion.

Harlequinade / All on Her Own

Michael Billington, the Guardian:
'Harlequinade' survives through its detailed picture of the myopic obsessiveness of actors for whom the stage is a self-enclosed world. Branagh himself exactly captures the vain absurdity of Arthur Gosport, who treats real life as a needless intrusion and who tries to counter his advancing years by having Romeo do skittish little jumps on to low-level benches.

Ann Treneman, the Times:
'Harlequinade' is amusing in its sitcom way, pleasant enough froth. But if I’d had a channel changer I would have used it a few times. Branagh, who directs with Rob Ashford, sends himself up as Romeo (“Am I too old?” he preens). But it feels very odd watching this, having just seen him ham it up in 'The Winter’s Tale'. I would try and figure it out, but I am not Freud.

Paul Taylor, the Independent:
['Harlequinade'] comes across as just an inoffensive, irritating pauper’s 'Noises Off' in miniature.

Michael Coveney, What’s On Stage:
['In All on Her Own'] Wanamaker is devastatingly good as a bereaved woman, Rosemary Hodge, trying to convince herself that her husband hasn’t committed suicide. The piece touches, too, on a kind of melancholic sexual regret and self-laceration distinctive and peculiar to Rattigan and, at just 15 minutes, is like one of those short Alan Bennett Talking Heads, only shorter, and balder.

Matt Trueman, Variety:
'All on Her Own' […] is the best of the bunch here. […] It’s a sharp, layered look at loneliness, grief and the tensions of marital compromise – ever so poignant and ever so well played. All truth, no vanity.