Measure for Measure  is one of Shakespeare’s problem plays.  It defies categorisation, it is neither a comedy nor a tragedy nor a history.  It is beloved of lawyers because it is about the rule of law but more of that later.  Problems are a challenge to director Blanche McIntyre so she has set this play in 1975 in a degenerate society where government has lost control and lawlessness prevails.   

Knowing that her dukedom of Vienna is falling apart the duke (Hattie Ladbury) leaves hardliner Angelo (Ashley Zhangazha) in charge and disguises herself as a friar.  Nun Isabella (Georgia Landers) finds that her brother Claudio (Josh Zaré) is sentenced to death for immorality, sleeping with, and getting pregnant,  his intended wife Juliet (Eloise Secker) when paperwork or dowry issues hold up their nuptials.  

Within the first few minutes of the play, there is an apparent power cut so we get 1575 lighting, candles, and for the next few minutes watch as the candles are lit by helpers.  They sell discarded used candles in the Globe Shop of about five inches in length! 

My original seat was precariously on the end of a row with good sight lines but I opted to change for a back rest, where much of the time I was looking through candles or candle hanging rods and couldn’t see anything at all on the top balcony.  This interference with sight was obviously my own fault.  The Sam Wanamaker is one of the prettiest theatres you could find, with its painted ceiling, but the seats are uncomfortable mostly without back rest and the leg room adequate for shorter folk. 

Pompey Bum, a pimp, is played by Eloise Secker and brings the news that Angelo has ordered all the brothels are to be demolished.  The Viennese men wear 1970s bad hair, bell bottomed suits with waisted jackets and kipper ties.  Topically Angelo says, “We must not make a scarecrow of the law.”