Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Ray Fearon, Colin Morgan, Hayley Atwell, Andrew Scott, Ryan Whittle, Neerja Naik, Ryan Early, Chris Lew Kum Hoi, Lauren Cornelius, Luke Bailey, Kerry Gooderson, Stefan Adegbola, Javier Marzan, Neil McCaul, Clive Hayward, Rupert Holliday-Evans.

Long regarded in the first folio of William Shakespeare’s works as perhaps nothing more than a romantic comedy, it is with fresh eyes in this more discerning and in part justly cynical age to look upon The Merchant of Venice as a problem play, one that deals with the idea of outspoken racism, of anti-Semitism and even inward contempt and intolerance towards a man of another faith, using his debt in which to berate him consciously for his words and supposed lack of loyalty to his God.

It is a problem that has come round full circle in the last 80 years as the spectre of Kristallnacht rears its ugly head, of the Nazi propaganda that symbolised the issues faced by the Jewish population as they saw devilish caricatures drawn out by German state writers, and it is one that has now crept into the lexicon of modern living once more with political debates raging and the creeping urge to disgracefully demonise the person of Jewish faith.

Advance the setting by 400 years, move the play to the after effects of the banking crisis in 2008 and you have a production that not only offers insight into the world of intolerance, distrust and in some cases hatred towards any religious service and faith, add the observance of how the pursuit of money has not changed, how revenge as a motif to beat those that ridiculed your belief, and this new adapted version for radio makes this chilling combination more urgent, more unsettling and even with the side story of the wooing of Portia, played with absolute authority by Hayley Atwell, still manages to convey the surrounding of the play as hard edged, bitter and without the sense of remorse or forgiveness.

With a stirring performance by Andrew Scott as Shylock, the aforementioned gravitas of Hayley Atwell as the heroic Portia and a passionate portrayal of love over property than of a human being by Javier Marzan as Arragon, the world can be seen as not to have changed at all, not in the 400 years since Shakespeare’s passing or in the 80 years since Kristallnacht and the death of civility.

The Merchant of Venice is a perfect adaption for the Shakespeare season on radio, one that pulls no punches in its delivery.

Ian D. Hall