The Merchant of Venice 1936

Oswald Mosley’s Blackshirts are getting a foothold in London’s East End. Shylock, here a single parent, requests a pound of flesh from Antonio, part of Mosley’s aficionados, in order to clear his debts. The demands of the Jewish moneylender who’s endlessly abused in public by the same people who require her services immediately gain further nuance in Brigid Larmour and Tracy-Ann Oberman.

After a successful run at the Criterion Theatre earlier this year, The Merchant of Venice 1936, an adaptation of Shakespeare’s work by Brigid Larmour and Tracy-Ann Oberman, with Oberman starring as a female version of the Jewish moneylender, Shylock. Larmour and Oberman have moved the setting to London in the 1930s, when fascism was on the rise with Oswald Mosley and his Blackshirts, culminating in the Battle of Cable Street on 4 October 1936.

Tracy-Ann Oberman is joined by acclaimed actor Joseph Millson in the critically acclaimed production of The Merchant of Venice 1936, for its strictly limited West End season at the Trafalgar Theatre (28 December – 25 January) and subsequent UK tour in 2025.