ABSTRACT
I suspect John Barton’s favourite season is the period when summer glides into autumn. In his beautiful production of Love’s Labour’s Lost at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon the leaves are just beginning to fall from the Ralph Koltai trees, there is a slight nip in the air and the evening shadows lengthen on the grass. And that idea of seasonal transition reflects Barton’s vision of the play: as a corrective comedy about four young men whose lives are likewise at a turning point.
