THE TEMPEST
The Golden Hinde
★★★★
“Inventive, playful and full of salt air, this is Shakespeare with its sea legs on”
Few theatres make you happy you went to the gym. The Golden Hinde, the full-size replica of Sir Francis Drake’s galleon moored on Bankside, certainly does. The audience ducks, crouches and clambers up stairs and under beams throughout the performance. Rebekah King’s hour-long adaptation of William Shakespeare’s The Tempest is part of the Totally Thames festival, the river’s month-long celebration each September. It uses the ship brilliantly: less a backdrop than a leading character.
The story is Shakespeare’s revenge fantasy. Prospero, the exiled Duke of Milan, has spent twelve years marooned on an island with his daughter Miranda, the spirit Ariel and the brooding Caliban. When a ship carrying his old enemies sails close, he conjures a storm to wreck it. What follows is a tangle of magic, mischief and young love as he decides whether to forgive.
King’s boldest and most interesting move is telling the tale from the servants’ perspective. Much of the courtly scheming is stripped back. What remains is the island seen through the eyes of those bound to Prospero’s will. This makes a familiar play feel newly strange.
The conceit is simple and irresistible: All the ship’s a stage. The audience follows the cast from top deck to hold. The play moves through the galleon as the plot moves across the island. Director Callie Nestleroth steers a six-strong cast and a roaming crowd through tight corners with real ingenuity. The effect is intimate, a little chaotic and masses of fun. When the tempest strikes, you are not watching a shipwreck; you are standing in one.
The lighting, sound and costumes do a lot with very little. The old timbers supply most of the atmosphere.
Cassandra Wilson, doubling as Ariel and Miranda, commands the ship as surely as any captain. King makes Ariel the storyteller, guiding us between decks. Wilson switches between spirit and daughter with clarity and conviction. In a production that never stands still, she is the fixed point every eye returns to. Zoé Badovinac doubles as Prospero and his treacherous brother Antonio. She heads a committed ensemble of Hadrian Conyngham, Charlie Woodward, Oliver George Wood and Lauren Grierson, all negotiating the cramped decks with admirable agility.
The pace is brisk, and the cast doubling takes some effort to track. Those who know the play will enjoy seeing what’s revealed by the significant edits. Newcomers may struggle to keep up, and would do well to read a synopsis before boarding.
Inventive, playful and full of salt air, this is Shakespeare with its sea legs on. A museum piece has been turned into a playground for one of the Bard’s most magical tales. Come knowing the story, and prepare to duck.
THE TEMPEST
The Golden Hinde as part of Totally Thames 2026
Reviewed on 22nd September 2026
by Elizabeth Botsford
Photography by Julian Guidera
