The Winter's Tale

I went to see The Winter's Tale at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield. I enjoyed it, but only well enough.
I'm in no position to talk about the acting, you have to be pretty bad before I notice, but I love looking at set, costume and going along with the story.
On a scale of one to implausible, this is pretty high up. I found it a really fun story.
The poster had me very excited about the set, I was expecting a theme of spindly branches, so I have to admit I was pretty disappointed.
Simon Daw's set was a let down. To me it seemed like lots of polystyrene, and a cracked wooded wall that came down occasionally. It bored me and it seemed that he didn't use words in the script such as coast to create a relevant set. That said, the props were normally good (I particularly liked the big straw sheep head), the statue scene was breath taking.
I am afraid the costume really annoyed me too. It was a bit directionless, like they just grabbed the first thing they found in the cupboard. There were suits, military dress, evening dresses, what appeared to be a toga. It just didn't work. Even when they managed to find a theme, like at the shepherds party, there was always one daft costume that seemed wrong, Perdita's odd Austrian folk dancing costume in this instance. I'm not sure if the scene with the bear was supposed to be tragic or not, because everyone seemed to be laughing at the gangly bear costume.
Although I think that the set was lazy and the costumes were daft, that is not to say I didn't enjoy it. It was a fun evening. I just think that the (seeming) lack of direction of the set and costume need to be worked on.