Jasper Britton was born in London in 1962. He is the son of the British actor Tony Britton, whose career spanned decades - juvenile leads for the RSC, film star in the 1950s, West End plays in the 1970s and a sit-com stalwart throughout the 1980s. Acting was in Jasper’s blood.
At the Shakespeare Institute Library, we are fortunate to have a collection of scripts used by Britton for roles at the Open Air Theatre, Regent’s Park, London; Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre, London; The Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon; and the Swan Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon. These range from 1995-2016 and comprise annotated copies of a number of plays in which Britton acted.
For the first six years of Britton’s working life, he was a stage manager and sound operator. The story goes that while working at the Old Vic, under Jonathan Miller, he one day forced his way into Miller’s office and refused to leave until he was allowed to audition for King Lear. He did not get the lead but did secure the role of the King of France to Eric Porter’s Lear. From small beginnings sprang what was to be a highly successful acting career. After playing in A Jovial Crew, Tamburlaine and Antony and Cleopatra, he won an award for his performance in Rope at Salisbury Playhouse. His career took an unexpected upturn when he was asked to replace the lead in a production of Richard III and received excellent reviews.
In 2000 he played Caliban at Shakespeare’s Globe, to Vanessa Redgrave’s controversially-cast Prospero. His ‘amazing’ performance dominated Acts II and III. Caked with dirt and clay, he was no monster but appeared sensitive and introspective, a creature to be pitied as a suffering member of the island’s underclass. His performance was notable for his frequent interactions with an audience which demonstrated its sympathy by cheering him.
Britton appeared in The Taming of the Shrew and The Tamer Tamed at the RSC in 2003. It was Greg Doran’s inspired idea to pair the Shakespeare text with the lesser-known play by John Fletcher.
RSC Programme 2003
In doing so, Doran presented both sides of the argument about the treatment of women by men, in a play which has become distinctly awkward territory in this feminist era. The Taming of the Shrew has been called ‘horrid’, ‘causing huge offence’, ‘a barbaric, disgusting play’ and George Bernard Shaw wrote of it as being:
The Tamer Tamed was written twenty years after Taming of the Shrew. It is unsurprising that Shakespeare’s play should have invited such a radical sequel, even in an age when patriarchal control was virtually universal.
Britton played Petruchio in both. In Taming of the Shrew he played down the macho swagger of many Petruchios and was not the tormenting demon of such productions. Instead he was troubled and perplexed, though well able to deliver stinging and sardonic retorts: he takes on ‘Kate the cursed’ with the defiant statement ‘Have I not in my time heard lions roar?’ His performance was very well received: ‘Britton is just about the ideal Petruchio… he gave a big, bold performance.’ Another critic responded with the simple advice: ‘Kill for tickets!’
In Tamer Tamed, the same cast was assembled, though Petruchio is now married to Maria. Her disobedience and refusal to be oppressed spreads to the town where the petticoat rebellion escalates, and local women indulge in an orgy of leaping, pot-banging and chanting: ‘The women shall wear the breeches.’ What do the women want? ‘As I thought, liberty and clothes’ drawls Petruchio. Despite Shrew being the better play in dramatic terms Tamer Tamed has the moral triumph, advocating friendship, affection and equality in the epilogue. Britton’s performance in the latter was highly praised, as almost topping his performance in Shrew.
In the same year, Britton played Macbeth at Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre. His working script in the Shakespeare Institute Library’s collection shows a variety of interesting personal annotations. The production, directed by Tim Carroll, did not receive rave reviews, nor was Britton praised for a performance that was considered too cerebral, glib and detached. The play had a high society vibe with actors in dinner jackets and Duncan’s blood being represented by gold tinsel. When a death occurred, a pebble was tossed into a bucket. The play was simply not bloody enough but portrayed ‘a polished surface with hell underneath it.’
Macbeth script DSH26/3
Britton’s 2015 role as Barabas in The Jew of Malta at the Swan Theatre, Stratford was regarded as a brilliant achievement. The Observer remarked of his performance: ‘stringy-haired, poppy-eyed, fluid in gesture and voice, at once gleeful, ironic and doleful, he is magnificent.’ Britton’s tall, imposing figure with flowing hair and steely-eyed logic, captured Barabas’ intellectual superiority over his tormentors. In what T.S Eliot called ‘a farce filled with savage, comic humour,’ Britton gave what was regarded as a remarkable and memorable central performance as the Jew – sinister, hilarious and outrageous.
Britton has also appeared in numerous film roles. He was Henry IV in the RSC’s Henry IV Parts I and II and donned hankies and bells to play Will Frosser, foreman of the Millsham Morris side in the film Morris: A Life with Bells On. Among many other television parts, he was William Howard in Blackbeard in the adventure-drama miniseries.