Review – Coriolanus, Royal Shakespeare Company, Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford upon Avon, 21st September 2017

Posted on September 25, 2017 by therealchrisparkle

Big plays and small plays, Shakespeare wrote them all. Even though it’s big in stature, Macbeth, for example, is small in size, at only 2,086 lines – little Comedy of Errors only has 1,754. At the other extreme, Hamlet has a whopping 3,798 lines – no wonder that uncut version with Albert Finney at the National back in 1976 took four full hours to endure. Coming in at fourth longest is Coriolanus (3,320 lines), and I reckon a good many of them are spent covering the hard battle for the city of Corioli, city seat of the Volscians. Allow me to give you a potted outline of what takes place: Caius Martius forces open the gates of the city and joins the leader of the Roman army, Cominius, to defeat Tullus Aufidius, commander of the Volscian army. In recognition of his valour, Caius Martius is renamed “Coriolanus”.

With an eye on future greatness, his bossy mother Volumnia wants him to stand as consul, but he’s most definitely not a man of the people. He is a man of martial valour, not petty suburban squabbling; and he finds it impossible to conceal how he despises the common man. The crowd turn against him for his attitude, and he ends up seeking refuge with his old foe Tullus Aufidius, who was previously defeated, but not dead. Together they plan to attack Rome, but at the last minute Volumnia makes Coriolanus repent his double-dealing, and a peace treaty is quickly hatched between Rome and the Volscians. As a thank you for his treachery, Tullus Aufidius kills Coriolanus. Oh, those Volscians.

I’d only seen Coriolanus performed once before – also courtesy of the Royal Shakespeare Company, back in 1978 with the tremendous Alan Howard in the title role. In that production, his name was pompously pronounced “Cor-eye-o-larnus”; thank heavens for the return to the present day sanity of “Cor-ee-o-laynus”. My main memory of the late Mr Howard is that he emerged from the battle covered head to toe in blood; it was Visceral Central. Fast forward almost forty years and Angus Jackson’s gritty new production has our new Coriolanus, Sope Dirisu, also covered head to toe in blood. Plus ça change… In fact, when Mr Dirisu appeared out of the darkness with his black leather armour soaked in gloopy red stuff, I swear the lady next to me almost fainted. It does provoke a strong response from the audience’s collective gut – and it’s not entirely comfortable. Plaudits to Terry King, the fight director, who must have been working overtime to get so many soldiers to clash so closely in hand to hand combat; never has the clinking of axes and the wielding of knives sounded so perilous.

This production is the final in a series of Shakespeare’s Roman plays that previously featured Julius Caesar, Antony and Cleopatra, and Titus Andronicus. I didn’t see those productions – although they are all returning to the stage at the Barbican later this year – so I can’t make any observations about how it fits in with the directorial vision of those other plays. What I particularly took from this production is how it highlights both the harshness of the reality of day-to-day life, and also how it exposes opposites within life; like the tough life of the working citizens and the easy life of the patricians.

The play opens with a fork lift truck driver removing some pallets from the centre stage to the back of the set. It’s a slow, deliberate, unemotional procedure; it has absolutely no bearing on the story or the first scene at all other than to show you the world from the point of view of the working man; in other words, the opposite of Coriolanus. Stark grey metallic grille shutters descend and ascend throughout the whole play, imposing their unsentimental clattering on whatever scene is taking place. They disturb the peace, they suggest a life of hard, manual work; the opposite of Coriolanus. The noble warrior in question, having previously gloried in the full gore of war, must present himself to the people, in an opposite light; as the wannabe consul who has to wear the cloak of humility (literally) in the marketplace to win the peoples’ support. He’s as uncomfortable as a pre-op patient in a theatre gown, carefully straddling the podium to retain as much dignity as possible (and not to let the citizens catch a glimpse up his legs.)

Then there are the two opposing women in his life; his mother Volumnia, the power behind the throne, is as tough as nails and manipulative as can be in her constant quest to mould him into the vanquishing warrior she desperately wants. His wife Virgilia, by contrast, barely dares make a sound as she hopes her husband will survive the battle with “no blood”; clearly the make-up department didn’t listen to her plea. There’s also a stark contrast between the bloody mess that Coriolanus made of Tullus Aufidius, and his later appearance as a society chappie hosting extravagant dinner parties at his pad in Antium. Angus Jackson makes the most of Aufidius’ words of affection for Coriolanus by amusingly tempting the Volscian chief right out of the closet. You’d imagine this Aufidius has shirtless pictures of Coriolanus littering up his browsing history. It’s definitely a production of contrasts.

Technically it’s a tremendous production – Richard Howell’s lighting is evocative, moody, and indeed sometimes quite terrifying. It reveals the harshness of life and the dark uncertainty of the battlefield; and the final tableau is a magnificent capture showing the dead hero being carried into an all-devouring but inexplicable light. As you would expect, the modern-day costumes do a grand job to reflect either the battle scenes, the comfort of the patricians, or the everyday clothing of the working citizens. The only downside to the play is that it’s just unfortunate that so much of the first act is either over-wordy or straightforward battlefield fodder, extremely well performed though it may be. The battle scenes occur too early for the audience to have a real sense of the characters involved, and they end up being somewhat confusing. Who’s fighting who over what? It isn’t always obvious. Added to this, you realise that Shakespeare reserves all his best scenes for the second half of the play; you may feel you have to wait a long time for the whole thing to really get going. It’s a potential problem for any production.

Sope Dirisu cuts an enormously grand figure as Coriolanus; a natural hero of the battlefield but a fake friend to the hoi polloi in the marketplace. Nowhere is his true character shown more vibrantly than when he rounds on the citizens as “you common cry of curs” – Mr Dirisu is just brilliant in this scene. He really makes you feel how wonderful it would be, if you’d had a bad day at the office, just to be able to turn on everyone and say, to hell with the lot of you. He has a fantastic stage presence and you have no doubt that he would win the day at any battle. Paul Jesson is superb as the over-comfortable, benignly complacent Menenius, apparently wandering from social engagement to social engagement with absolutely no clue that there’s unrest below the surface. In modern Britain he would be the archetypal so-called Metropolitan Elite Remain voter who was gobsmacked to discover the majority voted Leave.

Haydn Gwynne brings all of Volumnia’s strength and determination to the fore in a performance that leaves you in no doubt that she would dominate any family gathering. James Corrigan is particularly good as the socialite Aufidius, and his fury when he finally kills Coriolanus is truly shocking. There’s a wonderful performance by Charles Aitken (superb as Brick in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof a few years ago) as Cominius, liable to get hilariously over-emotional at times. The extended ensemble of actors give a great impression of the citizenry at large, in all its unhappy forms. I really enjoyed the scene where they all refused to take the blame for Coriolanus’ exile and his resultant joining forces with the enemy – so typical of how no one takes any kind of responsibility! Finally, a special mention to Jackie Morrison and Martina Laird as the two tribunes; delightfully stirring up trouble and doing their best to manipulate the populace – politics hasn’t changed, has it?

This excellent production emphasises the relevance of the story today and shows you how no single man can be all things to all people. Encouraged too far out of their comfort zone, who knows what calamity might ensue. Don’t push too far, your dreams are china in your hand, as the poet once said. Recommended!

Production photos by Helen Maybanks

Review – Dido, Queen of Carthage, Royal Shakespeare Company, Swan Theatre, Stratford upon Avon, 21st September 2017

Posted on September 22, 2017 by therealchrisparkle

Here’s a riddle for you: When is a Press Night not a Press Night? Answer: when it’s a matinee! A 1pm start for a slice of Christopher Marlowe heralded the beginning of a long but satisfying day in Stratford surrounded by the Royal Shakespeare Company in all its glory (or, when it came to Coriolanus in the evening, all its gory, but that’s a matter for another day).

I don’t know what the prospect of Dido, Queen of Carthage, by the aforementioned Marlowe, first staged circa 1590, does for you, gentle reader. This is the first time I’ve seen this play, having read it when I was knee high to a Punic warrior and probably not understanding a blind word of it. So I came to it with no preconceptions, other than the fact that “Dido” always makes think of a dodo and I’m not sure I would want to see a play about a dead old bird.

Don’t let that put you off! Kimberley Sykes’ exciting and visually eloquent production brings this rather hidden classic bang up to date, including scenes of drug abuse and homoeroticism – and that’s just in the first five minutes. The play opens with a grand gentleman, white linen suit reflecting his white flowing locks, like Santa Claus in a snow drift, wandering through a sandy landscape, out-staring any member of the audience who dares to stare back. This is Jupiter, annoyed that Juno has taken umbrage at his dalliance with Ganymede, a pouting, svelte young man who has difficulty keeping his top on. Meanwhile Venus, who has been mainlining some substance injected by her dealer, Cupid, is also clashing with Jupiter about the safety of her son Aeneas, who is lost at sea after seeking refuge leaving sacked Troy. Jupiter ensures that Aeneas and his followers are safely washed up on the coast of Libya; Venus ensures that they all meet up and will be looked after by the beneficence of the local queen Dido.

But Venus has further ambitions for Aeneas, so she engineers it that Cupid will disguise himself as Aeneas’ son Ascanius, prick Dido with his hypodermic, and ensure that Dido falls head over heels in love with Aeneas. It strongly reminded me of Shakespeare’s Hermia and Helena falling for Lysander and Demetrius – and vice versa. There’s a delightfully underplayed scene where Dido and Aeneas nip off to the cave for some Carthaginian Carnals, emerging later like a couple of relieved yet still bashful teenagers. At times it’s almost like a Libyan Midsummer Night’s Sex Comedy. What would Colonel Gaddafi have said?

But for every light moment Marlowe provides plenty of shade. There’s a very deeply tragic aspect to this play, from Aeneas’ moving (if long) account of the fall of Troy, to the genuine personal suffering of Iarbas, Dido’s suitor who can’t understand why she’s being so inconstant in her affections, to the imprisonment of the faithful nurse, and to Dido’s death by fiery self-immolation and the subsequent suicides of those around her. (I’m assuming after 425 years that it’s too late for spoilers.) I found it fascinating that, at the moments of high tragedy, when Dido and Aeneas part, and when Dido immolates herself, Marlowe gets the characters to quote directly – in Latin – from Virgil’s Aeneid, which would have acted as source material for the play. It’s like an early example of verbatim theatre.

The fascinating meshing between the gods and mankind not only acts as a framework for the play but is a running thread that weaves the lives of the mortals and the immortals together. There’s a simple truth here – if you’re a god, or you’re supported by a god, you will do well. If a god’s got it in for you, or you get in the way of what a god wants – then perish you shall. With the dramatic sifting of one handful of sand, they can create any kind of havoc they want. With one jab of his needle, Cupid can cripple or liberate your emotions. It just takes one message from Hermes, and Aeneas knows he has to abandon Dido; it takes two, actually; Aeneas proving remarkably stubborn over this.

There are so many refreshing elements to this production that delight and astonish. The surface of the stage is covered with sand, enabling it to represent a beach, where refugees might land or from where mariners might set sail, or a visual idea of the “sands of time”, or the dust that is everyone’s fate (gods excluded.) I loved the stylistic entrance of the shipwrecked Trojans, performing energetic diving forward rolls through the curtain of (real) torrential rain at the back of the stage. I loved the imaginative use of the torn down sails to create the ring in the sand inside which Dido would end her life. I loved the scene where Dido invited the men to inspect the portraits of her previous suitors on imaginary walls, where they would recognise someone they’d seen before, as though they were checking actors’ biographies in a programme – if only Marlowe had written “oh look, he was in Juliet Bravo”; alas a missed opportunity. I loved the updating of Cupid’s arrow to a drug pusher’s syringe. I loved the fact that Hermes was wearing a shirt made by Hermès (it might have been Versace, but the joke still stands). As you can see, there’s a lot to love.

Normally, musical accompaniment to a play like this feels artificial and invasive; but Mike Fletcher’s innovative and sympathetic soundtrack was absolutely spot on. From the portentous strings that evoke Venus’ doves to the plaintive clarinet that creates the smell of the souk (there’s even a wow moment of rock guitar in there too) the music really enhances the action and helps convey the emotions on stage. Ciaran Bagnall’s dramatic lighting adds power and exhilaration to the forces of Nature; and the costumes (see P. S. below) precisely reflect the finery of Dido’s court, the shabbiness of the refugees and the innate elegance of the gods – Venus’ and Juno’s dresses are particularly stunning.

What is a production without its performers? This is crammed full of exquisitely observed, finely delivered performances right across the board. Chipo Chung’s performance as Dido is a thing of beauty. When she presents Aeneas with her late husband’s cloak for him to wear, despite his protestations she’s never going to take no for an answer. When Cupid’s hypodermic is working its magic, she’s a most convincing bedazzled young girl, trying, but failing, to be appropriately coquettish as she reacts to Aeneas’ every syllable. To relieve the sadness of the account of the fall of Troy, she turns into Party Animal, every inch the good-time girl; and when she’s swallowed up in her own tragedy, she cuts an immaculately forlorn figure. At first, I didn’t think her death scene was going to work – there are no flames, for example – but cunning stagecraft and perfect stillness creates a devastating final tableau. We’d seen Ms Chung in Sheffield’s Julius Caesar earlier in the year where she was a fine Portia – but this was on another level.

She is matched by a strong performance by Sandy Grierson as Aeneas; his Scottish accent somehow underlining the character’s dour and warlike essence – this is an Aeneas that will leave light protestations to his co-refugees. Delivering that long speech about the fall of Troy – it probably accounts for over 10% of the play in itself – is a tough job, but his account never becomes long-winded or tedious as he brings the imagery of what happened fresh to our minds in all its lively atrocity. Although, physically, he’s not the beefiest of chaps, he’s like a coiled spring ready to leap into action without warning.

Ellie Beaven’s Venus also lights up the stage as she conveys the simple enjoyment of all her mischievous interventions in the mortal world; she has great presence, and her double act with Ben Goffe as Cupid is both funny and unsettling as we see the effects of drug abuse amongst the celestial beings. Mr Goffe is required to spend much of his time pretending to be Ascanius, physically cosying up to Dido, or the Nurse, or indeed whoever he wants – and the cheeky pleasure he derives from it is very infectious. The gods are all superbly presented; Nicholas Day is a naturally imperious Jupiter – you’re never going to cross him; Bridgitta Roy a splendidly sly Juno, lurking in the background, waiting for her moment to pounce; Andro Cowperthwaite revels in Ganymede’s brief but lascivious interchange with Jupiter; and Will Bliss’ Hermes is an amusingly world-weary postman until Jupiter plucks one of his feathers and then his nose starts twitching, ready to race like a Springer Spaniel on heat.

There are some great supporting performances from Aeneas’ Trojan followers; I particularly liked Tom Lorcan’s effervescently upbeat Iloneus and Tom McCall’s permanently suspicious Achates; and having a female Cloanthus, played by Lucy Phelps, creates an unusual but effective mix amongst the otherwise all-male retinue. Amber James is terrific as Dido’s sister Anna, always holding a helpless candle for her love for Iarbas, who’s superbly brought to life by Daniel York in a performance that combines brilliant throwaway humour and emotional trauma. At the performance I saw, young Ascanius was played by Samuel Littell and he truly held his own amongst all those grown-ups. Good work, young sir.

An unexpected treat of a play, that gives life to what otherwise could remain a dusty old tome on the bookshelf. Very enjoyable and highly recommended! Dido runs until 28th October at the Swan Theatre – get booking!

P. S. On the subject of costumes, the RSC has launched their Stitch in Time campaign, highlighting the importance, and unsurprisingly the expense, of accurate and evocative costumes in their historical productions. Even if you’re not able to contribute to the campaign, their website offers a fascinating insight into the attention to detail that their expert staff bring to creating Just The Right Outfit. Well worth a little donation, I reckon, if you admire their work.

Production photos by Topher McGrillis

Review – Volpone, Royal Shakespeare Company at the Swan Theatre, Stratford, 5th September 2015

Posted on September 9, 2015 by therealchrisparkle

For the third weekend in a row, we met up with Lord Liverpool and the Countess of Cockfosters for an afternoon of culture and drama. It was the Countess who was particularly keen on seeing this production, immersed as she is in all things literary and old, and that’s not just her husband. I’d read the play when I was younger but none of us had actually seen it on stage, so it was about time we got ourselves some education. So if, like Mrs Chrisparkle, you thought Volpone was Ben Jonson’s more successful prequel to Volptwo, maybe it’s time to reacquaint yourself with some Jacobean dramatists. Whilst Shakespeare continues to make his presence felt in every outdoor summer venue and traditional theatre space at least once a year, his Elizabethan and Jacobean contemporaries sometimes get overlooked. For at the same time that Shakespeare was whacking out King Lear, Jonson was proposing a very different kettle of fish in the guise of Volpone.

Guise is a good word in the circumstances, because Volpone – the man – is the ultimate dissembler. In reality a hale and hearty manipulator of idiots and lover of riches, to the outside world he is a feeble old man, languishing on his sickbed, dribbling incontinently into a spittoon. When not creating that illusion, he might be pretending to be Scoto the Mountebank, or a courtroom official, or any number of bogus creations. With its carefully chosen Italianate names for its characters, Jonson created the classic satire on greed. It’s set in Venice, where Volpone (the fox) with his co-conspirator servant Mosca (the fly), attempt to outwit the wealthy Voltore (vulture), Corbaccio (raven) and Corvino (crow), to prove that fools and their money are indeed soon parted, preferably in Volpone’s direction. Innocents are drawn into his web of deceit, like Corbaccio’s son Bonario (kindly) and Corvino’s wife Celia (heavenly). In a subplot, we are introduced to Sir Politic Would-Be (at the time politic meant “scheming” or “sly”), his garrulous and airheaded wife the Lady Would-Be, and the traveller Peregrine, whose name means…er… traveller. In a very moral resolution, the good, the bad and the foolish are all shown to be precisely what they are, with the wrath of the courts coming down heavily on the transgressors; with liberation and exoneration as the reward for the wronged.

With its completely original plotline, many consider this to be one of the finest Jacobean plays – certainly of the comedies. It is, however, rather long-winded. Structurally it starts with an elaborate opening scene where Volpone and Mosca fleece and con the three fools individually, and I sense that the more you emphasise the differences between these three characters, the funnier it is. It then breaks away to the street scene where Sir Politic and Peregrine have their conversation, giving Volpone and his entourage time to re-create themselves as Scoto and his team, which gives rise to a lengthy performance by Volpone-as-Scoto, encouraging his audience to buy his amazing cure-all oil. Finally, Volpone wins the attention of Celia – which is what all this has been leading up to. Benjo allows Scoto to rule the stage, and extemporise at length – and I really do mean at length. My own feeling is that it was because the original Volpone was played by Richard Burbage who was the Laurence Olivier of his time; the longer he was on stage, the happier the audience would be. Once Corvino has taken his revenge on Celia for her sassy behaviour but nevertheless agreed to offer her to Volpone for sex – yes this is quite an adult Jacobean comedy – humiliation and disgrace is the inevitable outcome for all concerned.

Trevor Nunn has created an updated version of Volpone for the RSC. No sense of Venetian gondolas and canals remain in this stark modern environment, where entrycams show us who’s knocking at Volpone’s door, video projections display the allegedly sick Volpone’s feeble heartbeat and erroneous blood pressure readings, and with a click of a button we can even see the stock exchange figures scroll past whenever Volp wants to play the markets. Overhead cameras show the sexy modern bed on which he plans his liaison dangereuse with Celia – you can just imagine that he would threaten to upload a coital video to YouTube in order to extort extra dosh. Sir Politic Would-Be points out how many followers he has on his iPad; and Lady W-B is followed everywhere by a camera crew. For me, the most effective use of the camera was during the court scene, where Volpone stops the proceedings to have a little private soliloquy whilst everyone else stands stock still as if frozen in time. The camera that was targeted on the judge also freezes and goes from colour to black and white, then resumes in colour again when life carries on. A relatively simple effect perhaps, but really arresting.

Not only is this a modern, technological age Volpone, it’s also a world where celebrity rules, which gives plenty of opportunities for telling juxtapositions between the 17th and 21st centuries. The programme credits translator and updater-extraordinaire Ranjit Bolt with “script revisions”. There are certainly plenty of these, most notably perhaps in the Scoto scene where the majority of Jonson’s original text has been replaced by a brand new speech. Fair enough; that’s in keeping with it being a cadenza-like sequence where the words and gestures play to the actor’s strengths and allow him simply to entertain to the full. However, I think it’s regrettable that Mr Bolt decided to retain Jonson’s original concept of this being a long scene. Funny and innovative as it is, it really does go on too long for no apparent plot progression benefit. It’s like one of those interminable drum solos in a concert that shows off the performer’s skills and range, and is very entertaining whilst it lasts, but then when you move on you can hardly remember it. As an aside, I realised when watching this scene the derivation of the word mountebank – because Volpone sets up a bench/table (bank) and stands on top of it (mounte) to deliver his spiel. You probably knew that already.

But where the production and its technological vision really works is with the characterisation of Lady Would-Be. A vacuous glamour-puss from the Katie Price/Made in Chelsea stable, she preens and pouts her way through the show whilst always ensuring the camera gets her best side. Her attendants are make-up girls and hair stylists, haute couture-shopping bag carriers and minders. Living life for her reality show, everything is captured on film until such time as she might be seen in a bad light, when she turns off the charm (such as it may be) and the cameraman gets the unsubtle call to “cut”. A great source for humour, and totally in keeping with the modernised version of the character, it was particularly funny in the courtroom when Lady W-B realised the trial was being televised, and thus kept bobbing about like a Hallowe’en apple trying to remain in shot. You can even follow her on twitter @LadyP_W.

At the heart of the play is a bravura performance by Henry Goodman as Volpone. He is perfect for the role, being very experienced at playing the dominating central character of many a fine production. We saw him in Chichester as Arturo Ui and he was mesmeric. In the course of this play he has to perform many parts, all of them Volpone. His transitions from one to another are seamless. It’s particularly enjoyable in the opening scene where he quickly changes from the fit-as-a-fiddle fox to the invalid in his domestic hospital bed. In a split second he ages about forty years; in “All the world’s a stage” terms he goes from the fifth age of the Justice in fair round belly, to the seventh, sans everything, in a snap. But all his characterisations are rounded, individual, and well considered to give maximum comedy value. It’s a very fine performance.

Buzzing around Volpone is Mosca, the fly, or, as more pejoratively termed, his parasite. Mosca is a constant presence, reliably assisting Volpone with his mischief and crookedness, darting here and there to serve and to misrepresent. He is His Master’s Voice where it comes to liaising with the three fools, trying to out-donate each other where it comes to adding to Volpone’s collection of riches. It’s an assured and cheeky performance by Orion Lee on his RSC debut, very believable as Volpone’s Rottweiler in his dealings with the outside world; just maybe when the tide turns and Mosca is in the ascendant, trying to outwit his master, he lacks a certain gravitas in the courtroom scenes.

Of the three dupes attempting to get their mitts on Volpone’s legacies, I was most impressed by Miles Richardson as Voltore the lawyer, with a good level of pomp and decency, which gets blown apart in the courtroom scenes where he is run ragged by attempting manipulation after deviation. He gives a great comic performance. A chip off the old block, he has much of his father Ian Richardson’s slightly lugubrious stage presence which is perfect for the humiliation of his general unravelling. Matthew Kelly is a very stern and unyielding Corvino, which works very well when he’s dominating his wife, but I felt there wasn’t a lot of light and shade in his performance. Geoffrey Freshwater’s Corbaccio is a deaf and doddery old thing, and, despite it being a good performance it makes you realise that, as a character, it’s something of a one-trick pony. Once you’ve laughed at his deafness a few times, there’s not a lot left to laugh at.

There are, however, some terrific other performances. The always excellent Steven Pacey as Sir Politic Would-Be is an avuncular and persuasive presence in his rich but tasteless clothes, stringing out fanciful plots and nonsensical concerns to the mild amusement and subsequent deep annoyance of Peregrine, an energetically youthful portrayal by Colin Ryan. In this modernised version, Sir Politic doesn’t get disguised in a tortoise shell but is squeezed into one of his wife’s outfits, make-up and beard at sixes and sevens, looking like Conchita Wurst after a hard night on the town. Mr Pacey carries off his shame with a nice mixture of anger and resignation. He is matched by the wonderful Annette McLaughlin as Lady Would-Be, capturing all that essential hollowness of a wannabe reality star, a bitch when thwarted, control freak par excellence, the true definition of beauty being skin-deep. Her stand up argument with Peregrine is theatrical bliss.

Jon Key, Ankur Bahl and Julian Hoult give good outlandish support as Volpone’s triumvirate of servants, representing the full range of humankind – you have to ask yourself, why Volpone does choose to be surrounded by a dwarf, a hermaphrodite and a eunuch? What was in the person spec for those job descriptions? Their mini-shows to entertain Volpone are well performed but, rather like the Scoto scene, tend to act as a pause-button to the play as a whole rather than driving on the drama – but that’s Jonson’s fault. Andy Apollo and Rhiannon Handy as Bonario and Celia don’t have a lot to do apart from outraged indignation, but they do it very well.

You come away from this production part impressed, part exhausted; the modernisation works well provided you don’t mind liberties being taken with a sacred text – not that it’s that sacred – and it offers several excellent performances. On the other hand, the play lasts three hours ten minutes, which is quite an ambitious project if you’ve just had a nice lunch with a bottle of Chablis, and you do get the feeling that there were some self-indulgences that could have been stripped away to bring it in at a more reasonable two and a half hours. But nevertheless it’s enjoyable and inventive, and when everyone gets their come-uppance at the end, you feel that justice has been done. Only a few more performances left, so you’d better get in quick.