Shakespeare: The Man From Stratford, Wilton's Music Hall, Sunday 6th May

Wilton's Music Hall, a short stroll from Tower Hill, is my favourite venue in London. Sadly decaying, it is the last remaining music hall, a miraculous survivor of the Blitz, and a marvellous place to put on a show. I've seen an all male Pirates of Penzance there, and had a goodly drink in the bar. It's got a damp concrete smell of decadence about it, and I love it.
Simon Callow must love it too, otherwise he wouldn't have chosen it to put on a secret preview of his new show Shakespeare: The Man From Stratford. It'll be on tour round the country during the summer, finishing at the Edinburgh Festival, and hopefully finding a London home after that (fingers crossed).
Things were a little bit rough round the edges, as you'd expect - no set, no props, just the disarmingly lovely Callow giving an intimate explanation of what makes Shakespeare so damn good. Jonathan Bate has done good work with the script - Jacques' seven ages of man speech from As You Like It is used as a route through Shakespeare's life, and Callow plays a multitude of characters along the way, slipping gracefully in and out of a handful of the Bard's (and his contemporaries') plays. It's a charming little biography, casual and engaging, and runs the gamut of human emotion in Callow's performances - he's as fine a Juliet as a Launce. There are moments of surprisingly modern relevance, particularly in a momentary delving into Sir Thomas More, which touches on the problems of immigration.
My only problem is that it's such a tease. If you weren't familiar with Shakespeare's biography (what there is of it), or needed to change the mind of someone unconvinced by all the versifying, it'd be a marvellous start. But a few moments of Callow as Lear, or Leontes, or (for a few, fabulous, spine-tingling moments) Faust, just isn't enough for me. More Simon Callow, please. In Faust flavour, if you have him.