The Shoemaker's Holiday – reviews of ‘glorious' revival

What you need to know

The Royal Shakespeare Company's revival of Thomas Dekker's The Shoemaker's Holiday has opened at the Swan, Stratford-upon-Avon. Phillip Breen directs Dekker's Elizabethan comedy, which premiered at London's Rose Theatre in 1599.

It tells the story of a young gentleman, Rowland Lacy, who is forced by his father to join the army and fight the French abroad as a way of keeping him from his lower-born beloved, Rose. But Lacy finds a stand-in and secretly returns to London in the guise of a Dutch shoemaker, apprenticing himself to craftsman Simon Eyre while he conspires to woo Rose. Runs until 7 March.

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What the critics like

This revival is "a load of jolly old cobblers", says Dominic Maxwell in The Times. Romantic intrigue, bawdy jokes, exuberant morris dancing and merry-making, even a smattering of fart gags keep the action thrumming with buoyancy and bonhomie.

Breen directs a "gloriously entertaining" account of Dekker's play, a lovingly crafted city comedy laced with touches of pathos, says Dominic Cavendish in the Daily Telegraph. It's a play that takes the measure of English society, from foot-soldiers to the crown – and invites thoughts about what it means to be in someone else's shoes.

Thomas Dekker's play is often thought of as a jolly, red-nosed Elizabethan comedy celebrating the shoemaker's craft, says Michael Billington in The Guardian. But Breen's "shrewdly intelligent RSC revival" sets the play squarely in its period, and reminds us that London workers lived in fear of being pressed into the army.

What they don't like

Breen lends "brief emotional weight" to proceedings with some sombre moments such as bodies borne from the battlefield in falling snow and the return of the play's second hero, Ralph, maimed and disfigured, says Dominic Maxwell in The Times. "By and large, though, this is jovial, if rather forgettable, fun."