THE TAMING OF THE SHREW Matt has toured with the Bell Shakespeare Company, for one year, right after he finished NIDA. plot The play opens with the Induction in which a drunken tinker called Christopher Sly appears and is convinced that he is a lord by a nobleman as a practical joke, and eventually he agrees to watch a play being performed for his benefit. The play that follows is that which Sly is supposed to be watching, but he is soon removed from the action and only in the bad quarto text is he given a further part. The play that is performed for Sly is set in Verona, where we meet Baptista Minola of Padua's two daughters: the popular Bianca and Katherina the Shrew. Petrucchio endeavours to woo the seemingly unwinnable Katherina so that he can take her dowry and so that his friend Hortensio may marry Bianca who has sworn not to wed until her sister has found a husband. The play follows his taming of Katherina by such methods as appearing to find her appalling manners courteous and trying to "kill a wife with kindness". Inevitably, marriages ensue and the play concludes with a bet to see who has the most subservient wife. critics "Matt Passmore's Petrucchio is also similarly complex in conception and delivery. While there is a confidnet physicality which enable us to see why Kat finds him attractive and intriguing. Passmore invests the character with enough foppish self absorption to modify any easy notions of male supremacy." Western Advocate (Bathurst), Wednesday 10 July Reviewed by Warwick Franks

:: the Bell Shakespeare Company Matt on Stage