Gaining a pound of flesh at the Octagon

Being cultured and all that, we sometimes venture out to the local theatre whenever one of their productions catches our eye. The Octagon in Bolton, which dates from the late 1960s, is a compact theatre whithout a stage as such, just an open space surrounded on three sides by the audience. Those on the front row are virtually part of the performance. We've seen a number of plays there over the years and always enjoy visiting.

We'd seen that the Octagon was hosting a production of Shakespeare's 'The Merchant of Venice', which was the play I'd read at school for my English Literature O-level. Despite several years passing since those days, I did recollect the main jist of the plot and was looking forward to seeing it live, something the school never arranged all those years ago.

Beforehand, we decided to try out the theatre restaurant, which served excellent food in big portions at reasonable prices. The lemon meringue pie in particular was absolutely enourmous!

This was my first visit to a Shakespeare play and I was immediately surprised by the bleakness of the set, which looked like slabs of stone. The production stayed with the original script, but added a modern twist with the cast wearing up to date clothes and communicating by mobile phone. Although this would have upset traditionalists, I felt it added an extra dimension to the play, as it helped illustrate that the key themes of the play are still relevant to our time.

Although the Jewish Shylock is portrayed and treated as the villain, by the end of the play you can't help having sympathy for him as he loses everything and even has his religion taken away from him, all because of his desire for his 'pound of flesh'.

If he'd eaten in the theatre restaurant beforehand he'd have gained his extra pound without any of the hassle!