Every word is clear and each phrase thought through but the tonal choice renews a reverent competition with the late Sir Laurence Olivier (whose Henry V movie Branagh remade).

SHAKESPEARE’S MOST musical play, with several formal songs and other rhymes and chants that invite setting, The Tempest is also the most musicalised. It has inspired around four dozen operas plus song and dance adaptations in theatre and cinema. The RSC’s latest revival – a two-knight stand: Sir Kenneth Branagh directed by Sir Richard Eyre – seems to take its cue from that element. Branagh enters holding a baton and walks to a waiting music stand. Prospero’s “book” is a score, though with cabalistic rather than musical markings.

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