PRINCIPAL CAST: Olivia Darnley (Bianca); Geoffrey Freshwater (Baptista Minola); Ross Kemp (Petruchio); Nicola McAuliffe (Katherina).

This was a touring production presented by the Theatre Royal Plymouth and Thelma Holt.

"Director Mark Rosenblatt weaves witty-gritty magic in this effervescent take on the taming of Kate. Set in the Italy of 1962, the action unfolds against Jon Bausor's deceptively versatile stucco walls, housing an array of doors and staircases....Nicholas Boulton as Hortensio and Edmund Kingsley as Lucentio make comic capital as competing suitors for the hand of Bianca in an excellently cast production packed with pace and panache."  ~ Roger Malone, The Stage, 16 October 2003

"The action is set in the early 1960s, in a world that comes across as a cut-price version of Fellini's La Dolce Vita. Instead the glamour of Rome, John Bausor's design offers a run-down square in Padua, with peeling posters on the walls, and an ice-cream bar that appears to offer the only entertainment in town, apart from the wooing of Bianca and the baiting of Kate."  ~ Charles Spencer, "The ugly truth about a comedy of male brutality", Daily Telegraph, 15 October 2003