FEISTY, frenzied and chock-full of character, Taunton Thespians’ open air Shakespeare tour of The Taming of the Shrew cast the gutsy comedy in a glorious light.

Our ‘Shrew’, the unmarried Katherina, spitting feathers at being shoehorned into a society where men and manners rule, was played with brilliant fire and wit by a basilisk-like Martine Davis.

I’d been itching to see the fruits of the Thespians’ labours after being picked to take part in the Royal Shakespeare Company’s Open Stages Programme.

The dramatists served up one of The Bard’s most difficult plays – a complex tangle of sexual and social politics, which they brought into 1930s Italy – making it look easy and well worth its RSC seal.

Seeing them on a night hot enough to match the spice in Shakespeare’s verse, you could see the spit and polish their RSC experience has given their already slick operation.

Physical theatre was delectable as Katherina literally wrestled first with Bianca (a fittingly doe-eyed Charlotte Newman) then her brazen suitor, and ‘tamer’, Petruchio.

The man himself, as Katherina’s brash match, was played deftly and gleefully by Rob Adams.

Later, that night’s audience in the Museum of Somerset’s courtyard would get to see him dressed like some peculiar Johnny Depp in bandana and banana-yellow trousers… on his wedding day, hoping to dumbfound his fiancée (again).

Then there was the seamless flow of action from all corners of the stage; that every piece of dialogue struck a blow; how each character in the cast was drawn out to their full, adding something fresh to the plot.

It’s about as good as it gets.

AUDITIONS for Taunton Thespians’ November 11-15 production, Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Nile, run from 7.30pm on Tuesday, August 5, Friday, August 8, and Tuesday, August 12. Click here for more details.