I once rashly suggested that this "barbaric, disgusting play" be permanently shelved. I soon recanted but my impulsive edict is a measure of the problems the play poses. Different directors seek different solutions. One answer, as in Toby Frow's revival at Shakespeare's Globe (2012), is to suggest that the whole play is the fantasy of a drunken tinker. Another popular one is to imply that Petruchio and Kate fall in love at first sight and simply play out a mock-violent charade. A third solution is to transpose the action to a new setting as in the teen movie 10 Things I Hate About You (1999).
But, in my experience, the three productions that have grappled best with the play's problems have all come out of Stratford. Oddly, it was Michael Bogdanov's 1978 version, which began with Jonathan Pryce's Sly erupting on to the stage and tearing down the set, that prompted my call for a ban: on a second viewing, I realised that Bogdanov was offering a vivid re-creation of a cruel, male-dominated mercantile society. I also admired Jonathan Miller's 1987 production in which Brian Cox's Elizabethan Petruchio used Biblical texts as a warrant for his treatment of Fiona Shaw's disturbed, scissor-wielding Kate. But it was Greg Doran's 2003 production that for me unlocked the play. Jasper Britton's Petruchio was a mad drunk, obsessed by his father's recent death, who was effectively "cured" by Alexandra Gilbreath's sympathetic Kate who glimpsed a figure worthy of redemption. It was an eye-opening reading which totally changed my perception of the play.
• What are your favourite versions of The Taming of the Shrew? Let us know in the comments thread below
